Back in February, just after Sony unveiled the first details of its PlayStation 4, rumors started swirling that Microsoft was planning an April event for the successor to the Xbox 360. When March came and went without any official word, many assumed the rumors were just that. Now, new reports suggest that the next Xbox launch event has been pushed back to May 21.

The new date was first revealed by veteran Microsoft journalist and watcher Paul Thurrot on a recent What The Tech podcast. The Verge was able to confirm this date with its own sources. This event would come just ahead of E3 (June 11-13), and Microsoft's own developer-focused Build conference starting on June 26, which the company has said will feature content focused on the Xbox.

Thurrot went on to suggest that the next Xbox would be launching in "early November" and that the system is "going to be expensive, $500, $300 with a subscription, that kind of thing." While he didn't reveal a specific source for this information, he presented it with the matter-of-fact assurance of someone who had been briefed directly.

Thurrot also added more fuel to the persistent rumors that the next Xbox will require a constant Internet connection to use. "Going back and looking at some of the stuff I got a long time ago, it actually says 'must be Internet connected to use,' that's in the notes," Thurrot said. "That's all I have, but it does say that."

Microsoft recently took some heat when Microsoft Studios Creative Director Adam Orth tweeted that people should learn to deal with the idea of an Internet requirement for a console, saying that it's just "the world we live in." Microsoft later apologized for Orth's "inappropriate" remarks but pointedly refused to offer any further comments on the matter.

Elsewhere in his interview, Thurrot talked about plans for "another version of the Xbox that was just aimed at entertainment," codenamed Yuma. That device has been cancelled for the time being, Thurrot said, in favor of a $99 Xbox 360 (codenamed Stingray) that should be launching around the same time as the follow-up system. All this taken together led him to speculate that the next Xbox won't be backward compatible with current Xbox 360 games.