Seattle Times staff columnist Brier Dudley published an editorial earlier this week in which he speculates the announcements Bill Gates could make in his last CES keynote as chairman of Microsoft. Dudley said the following regarding the Xbox:

Saving the best for last, Gates could end his CES run with a bang by making a blockbuster Xbox announcement.

I've speculated on my blog that Microsoft may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies.

In particular, Microsoft could work with Toshiba to develop a digital video recorder with a hard-drive, high-definition HD-DVD drive and Xbox gaming capabilities. They're already allied against Sony and other backers of the Blu-ray DVD format, and Toshiba could help Xbox finally penetrate the Japanese market.

Microsoft could also make a splash by announcing plans to give the Xbox 360 an internal HD-DVD drive, putting it on par with Sony's PlayStation 3 that has a built-in Blu-ray drive.

But then again, Gates may want to keep everyone in suspense about the next Xbox, in case he decides to return to CES after all.

This info is frim Team xbox

I hope its something else like a new big game or GTA5 exclusive....

GTA5 Won't ever be exclusive sorry... Maybe its a Gears of Wars 2... That will definitely generate some hype.

Wouldn't it be? GTA 4: Vice City?

@xbox360

GTA5 is not going to be exclusive, sony already took the game by contract.

I hope its a decent well establish announcement.

I think its either about a game or about the future of the Xbox brand.

I don't think they'll announce any games. It's CES.

Anyways, I think it's a very bad idea to put internal HD-DVD on the 360 if they already started the generation without it and IMO they're doing pretty darn good without it although the future is a little skeptical. Also, I'd like to point out it's pretty useless and will only be for movie playback because no previous games supported it and if they support it now, they'll ditch a lot of earlier adopters of the console.

They are announcing the closure of the 360 division due to excessive service costs and shrinking harware profitability.

more news :According to Stuff Magazine, a rumored Xbox 360 Ultimate SKU is set to hit in Autumn 2008. This 'PS3 killer' will benefit from three years of Xbox development, featuring 1080p HDMI output, built in WiFi, hi-def audio output, cooler architecture and a near silent fan. It'll also have a built in HD-DVD drive and take advantage of IPTV services with a 320GB hard disk.

@zackblue

GTA5 is not going to be exclusive, sony already took the game by contract.


Huh? This statement is contradicted. Exclusive means only for one company. If Sony took the game by contract it WOULD be exclusive, right?