Xbox Live will be down for an expected 24 hours today due to maintenance. Interestingly enough, so will Zune and Twitter. One could assume that this is no coincidence as Microsoft announced, during E3, that both services will be coming to Xbox Live. Most likely, this maintenance will be the first stage in making that happen.

1UP reported on Monday that Microsoft plans to release a new Xbox console as early as next year, featuring beefed-up Xbox 360 hardware and built-in Project Natal technology.

1UP speculates on the idea that Microsoft could try a similar move such as the one done by Nintendo, which basically built the Wii around the GameCube hardware, with the motion-sensing “Wiimote” being the real addition.

Over recent years, TeamXbox has received information on Microsoft’s future plans for the Xbox platform, and that’s why, among other topics, they extensively covered 3DV Systems’ Z-Cam. Avid TeamXbox.com readers know they were the first publication to report that Microsoft signed IBM to create the CPU for the Xbox 360 (at a time when no one would believe Microsoft and IBM would work together or that the Xbox platform would use a non-x86 CPU) and that Microsoft was doing research on video-based motion sensing.

Today, they can tell you that they have obtained the first details on the next Xbox and that’s why they can confirm that the rumor reported by 1UP is false.

Epic Games just posted on their Twitter site that they will be at the Microsoft’s E3 press conference to announce something big. What could it be? Gears of War 3 maybe?