For the past few months, rumors have been spreading around that the next Xbox will require users to be connected to the Xbox Live servers at all times to work. Ars Technica is reporting that an internal Microsoft memo has said that the next Xbox should be able to work regardless of the Internet situation in a person’s home.

“There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game,” the memo stated.

While we now know that consumers can still play a single player without an active connection to the internet, the extent of this offline mode is not known. Some believe that you will still need an active connection to install games to the Xbox hard drive.

[Source]