Don’t you love it when the best laid marketing plans fail to come together? Microsoft has been doing its utmost to stick to the vague ‘autumn’ release window it formally announced for the shiny, avatar-enhanced ‘New Xbox LIVE Experience’, as the forthcoming dashboard update is being touted. However an advert posted on the US version of Xbox.com has narrowed it down to November. Heh!

The offending ad (pictured) is for MTV/Harmonix’s Rock Band 2 and, among many messages, quite clearly states “Check out the New Xbox Experience coming in November”. That’s rather more tempting than the sponsor’s other invitation to sample its ‘ridiculously long lasting gum‘, isn’t it?

Of course dashboard advertisements such as this do not necessarily represent gospel truth, and Microsoft, as you might expect, is keeping resolutely schtum until they‘re good and ready to reveal all. That said it’s extremely unlikely that those responsible for the ad injected this tell-tale element just for a laugh or submitted it without some kind of higher level approval. And isn’t the purpose of next Monday’s 24-hour XBL downtime all about preparing the ground for the radical update?

Yup, we reckon there’s more to this one than Microsoft would like us to believe. Watch this space for more info soon.