Wow, if not for the screen limitation, Mario Kart would kill with this.

playing 8 player micromachines on the mega drive was some of the most fun I can recall as a kid, J-Cart to let you stick 4 controllers in the megadrive then the Mini Micros which auto accelerated you just use left and right for one person and A+C for the 2nd person on each controller. was hilarious.

It's not just about supporting local play with each controller, that wasn't really ever the issue with the 360 not allowing more controllers. Think of games like Rockband and the likes, if you got 4 players and you want to use both a guitar and a mic you can't. the mic has to be assigned to a controller/profile and so does each guitar/drumkit. the only way this works in the rock band games pretty much has the vocalist singing for no reason. limiting to the exact number of devices which can be connected is never a good idea.

That's nice, but personally I don't even have that many friends that are also gamers. I can muster maybe... two? And that's if I'm really trying .

Good news, I guess I'll inform the wife that we can make some more children.
Now show me a 6 player split screen game, 6 640x540 windows is fine on a 52" tv.