Adam Orth is a creative director at Microsoft Studios. That places him pretty high up on Microsoft's video game chain of command. Not the top, but he's an important guy.
Anyway, earlier today, Adam took to Twitter to seemingly talk about our report that the next Xbox console will require an always-online internet connection.
While Microsoft has never publicly acknowledged or referred to this next machine, or that report in particular, Orth nevertheless felt the need to comment personally, telling people - as first collated by NeoGAF - that "I don't get the drama around having an 'always on' console. Every device now is 'always on'. That's the world we live in."
What followed was...this.
It's very interesting that such a prominent Microsoft Studios employee would comment on something like this at all, let alone get into it with people - including game developers - over Twitter. While his opinions here are clearly his own, and make no specific mention of a new Microsoft console, it'll still turn heads given his position and the timing of the comments.
We're still weeks or even a couple of months away from the official unveiling of Microsoft's next console. They've got plenty of time to re-think their plans, refine their message, squash rumours or convince us further that an always-online console is the way to go.
UPDATE: We should have noted that we reached out to Orth for comment or clarification about his Tweets prior to the publication of this piece. He did not provide an official response and has switched his Twitter feed to private.