>> From kotaku.com: [QUOTE] Those of you sporting an Xbox 360 sans hard drive are going to be, unsurprisingly, shut out of the Halo 3 beta if you purchase your copy of Crackdown hoping to secure a spot. We're basing that on the new boxart for the North American release of Crackdown, courtesy of this week's Bungie update.
Exclusive: 360 HDMI Proof - HR Pictures and Video - HANA Scaler
>> Here's a bit more about the news published earlier about the Xbox 360 'Zephyr' prototype with HDMI port. It's the 2nd time a HMDI picture leaked (1st time here if you missed it) and it looks like there are still many people that don't (want to) believe it ... so I guess it's time we come clear because Microsoft doesn't and we think you as customer has the right to know what's coming. Microsoft still refuses to acknowledge it ... this is what they replied today to severalnewsoutlets: "We have seen all types of claimed leaked photos like this show up online and as a standard policy we don't comment on speculative items."
We managed to get some exclusive High-Resolution pictures for x-scene of a 'Zephyr' prototype with the HDMI port. No, it's no retail Xbox360, it's a prototype board ... but Microsoft had to design a new scaler chip named 'HANA' (replacing the (analog-only?) 'ANA' chip found in current retail and dev Xboxes), I doubt they'll do that effort for nothing. You will also notice several other changes to the motherboard. Microsoft always refused to answer any question about a possible HDMI-cable for the Xbox360 (even when asked for explicitly), but this HANA chip probably confirms the current 360 can only output an analog signal, so an HDMI-cable for the current 360 probably won't be possible (sure they could design a cable/box that reconverts the analog output to digital, but that makes no sense and is not the point).
Note: we can't tell/confirm you if the HDMI port, 65nm CPU and larger (120gb) HD are linked to each other. They might or might not be released together. The 65nm CPU is coming for all Xbox models anyway (confirmed by MS and Chartered long time ago + delay news). And it's also pretty obvious (with current demand and video marketplace) that MS will release a larger HD sooner or later, this requires no change to the motherboard.
Here are the pictures we got from our sources (click for high-res):
Shot of the connectors: the classic output and the new HDMI output. View of the inside, on the right you'll notice the new HANA scaler chip. On the left the 'old' ANA scaler, on the right the new HANA scaler ('H' for HDMI?)
More Pictures: * Close-up output without case: low-res | high-res * HANA/Output Motherboard-region (2): low-res | high-res
Still not enough for you? How about a video? A HDMI->DVI converter was used to show you the port in action using a small PC LCD screen. And before you ask ... a dev kit always takes a while to boot, that's why it takes longer than with a retail 360.
Pre-CES: 10.4 million Xbox 360s Sold, IPTV Set-Top Support
>> From Dean Takahashi at mercurynews.com: [QUOTE] Bill Gates and Robbie Bach are expected to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show that Microsoft has sold more than 10.4 million Xbox 360s since the launch in November, 2005. That means Microsoft has also hit its targets for sales of consoles during the holidays.
Microsoft is also dropping something of a bomb at the show. Jim Brady, a spokesman for Microsoft, said Gates and Bach will say in the keynote speech Sunday night at the Venetian Hotel that the Xbox 360 will be able to serve as a set-top box for IPTV, or Internet protocol television. The details on this announcement are sketchy and Brady says only that it will appear later this year. He did say that no consumers would be left behind, meaning that all of the 10 million plus Xbox 360s in the market would be able to participate in the IPTV services at some level. [/QUOTE]
Full Story: mercurynews.com (article has been taken down - looks like Microsoft didn't like it)
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
>> From gamasutra.com: [QUOTE] Representatives from IDG World Expo have announced 'Entertainment for All Expo' as the new contest-winning name for the group's upcoming October game exhibition at former E3 venue the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The new name, submitted by California resident Dante Padre as one of over 3000 entries in Gamepro.com's contest to rename the exhibition, is said to reflect the expo's 'openness and accessibility to the public,' in comparison to E3's previous industry-only restrictions.
The October E for All Expo, taking place October 18-20 at the Los Angeles Convention Center - previous site of the former E3 - will, according to IDG, build on "momentum and pent-up demand that has grown within the consumer audience for all things related to computer and video games," and "launch an early holiday shopping season for the industry." [/QUOTE]
>> From engadget.com: [QUOTE] Ever wonder why Microsoft hasn't released an HDMI cable for the Xbox 360, or whether the AV port was really capable of digital out? Well, here's your answer: we landed pictures of what appears to be the second Xbox 360 -- the Xbox 360 v2, if you will -- codenamed Zephyr. (The original Xbox 360, if you recall, was codenamed Xenon.) The long rumored about and awaited update to the console won't just feature a new, cooler 65nm processor, it's also finally added an HDMI port for full digital 1080p pleasure, as well as a 120GB drive, just what the doctor ordered. The 120GB drive may or may not come bundled with the kit, we don't yet know, just as we also don't yet know how much a Zephyr 360 is going to run (we imagine it'll go for the same price as currently so they can keep up a little on their expanding margin). But our very kind Xbox insider seemed happy to let us know we'd be able to get them "soon."
>> From the press release: [QUOTE] www.xcmlive.com presents to the gaming media a first view at the upcoming XCM multi-component cable which will support Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 and PS2 formats. At the flick of a switch gamers can toggle between their console displays, a great set-up if PS2 owners can't bear to completely part with the 'old generation' and also ideal for those with a mixture of 'next generation' systems. The sheer quality of this versatile cable will optimize any textures and gaming visuals, making it a must-have for all gamers.
For now the media and gamers are welcomed to view the 'in action' video of this product. Stay tuned for a news follow-up relatively soon, with complete specifications, pricing and availability! [/QUOTE]
>> From washingtonpost.com: [QUOTE] It's not hard to see why game fans might become partisans for the consoles they play on. You're a lot better off, fun-wise, if your friends buy the same system you get so you can all play online together. And with the high-end Xbox costing $400 and the high-end PS3 costing $600, it has become too expensive for most gaming fans to pick up both machines.
Here's the funny part, though: Xbox love doesn't translate to Microsoft love. That is to say, Xbox owners love their Xboxes but many would rather ignore the fact that the product comes from Microsoft, a company that has often had image problems among techies of the world. Fleisher, for example, wishes that the company's game-console team ran Microsoft, not the other way around. Or that the Xbox team had nothing to do with the software company. "I always say Xbox," he said, "because I don't like to associate it with Microsoft." [/QUOTE]
Wedbush Morgan predicts modest growth for industry in 2007
>> From gamesindustry.biz: [QUOTE] Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has told GamesIndustry.biz that the games industry is likely to experience more modest growth than has been predicted in the coming months.
"I think 2007 will be sloppy. It will start out quite strong, due to the PS3 and Wii supply situation being fixed in the US and the PS3 launch in Europe," he stated. "Software sales in the summer should trend down to mid-single digits, due to impossible comparisons to 2006 and extraordinarily expensive console prices. I think that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will continue to sell very slowly during the summer, because at the price, they are no longer an impulse purchase." He also believes that hardware sales are likely to be higher at Christmas than during past years, and will continue to rise in 2008 as the household penetration of high definition monitors grows. [/QUOTE]
(USA) Lazard Capital: Xbox360 Sold 4.5 million Units in 2006
>> From next-gen.biz: [QUOTE] On the hardware front, Colin Sebastian with Lazard Capital Markets said that Wii sales momentum continues and PS3 supply "improved somewhat" during the month. He also estimates that the Xbox 360 is on track to sell 4.5 million units in the US for 2006 and the PS3 is estimated to have sold 700,000 thus far. Sebastian also added that the Wii is set to surpass Lazard's previous forecast of 1.2 million units. [/QUOTE]
>> Smokehead released details and a beta of a new XboxMediaCenter(info) skin he's working on. It makes extensive use of the new XBMC v2.1 skinengine: [QUOTE] It's been a while since PDM has been updated, and some of you may wonder why. Well i can tell you that i was kind of busy these past months with personal as well other side projects and one of them was a new XBMC skin called "Clearity" or codename: "ProjectX". There were some goals that i wanted to accomplish but not many, one of them was to try and break the common button usage on the left and place them like tabs above the actual menu to increase space for the lists, panels, etc. also i wanted a clear looking skin with some custom options for users to use their own backgrounds if needed, so just the basic stuff.
It also takes advantage of the highly new and top-of-the-line XBMC skin engine features like new lists and icon panels, wich we can only thank one man for .. jmarshall. these include better handling of dialog overlays, better list and icon panels, Wraplists.., better .The skin is in beta stage and this means that there can be flaws, ..hmm there will be flaws, so please report them in this tread if you encounter one so they will get fixed sooner or later.. thx in advance.
You can download the latest beta code of this skin on the XBMC Skinning SVN (on win32/64 you can use TortoiseSVN to download from a SVN). Also note that you must be using a recent build of XBMC pre-v2.1 (like the latest SVN T3CH Build). Thanks to pike for the news/link. Full Story/Official Thread: xboxmediacenter.com forums.
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
>> From vggen.com: [QUOTE] Nyko announced today that it will unveil its Zero line of controllers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Zero controller features 2.4 GHz wireless technology, heat-dissipating aluminum panels, backlit buttons, and "a unique ergonomic design." The Zero runs on a rechargeable battery pack. Both controllers (along with a PC version apparently not being shown at CES) will be available in Q1 2007, and retail for $49.99. A version is already available for the PS2. [/QUOTE]
>> From biz.gamedaily.com: [QUOTE] Today a number of popular gaming websites reported on a video segment from CNBC, which talks about the video game industry and holiday sales. The gaming sites claimed that from November through the December holiday period that 2 million Xbox 360s were sold, followed by 1.8 million Wiis and 750,000 PS3s. These figures, however, were falsely attributed to The NPD Group.
NPD's David Riley informed GameDaily BIZ, "Recent media reports erroneously cited The NPD Group as having provided to CNBC December '06 retail sales for the video game industry. Although the specific CNBC segment included NPD's November '06 console hardware install base sales figures, there were no sales figures or forecasts from NPD for December 2006. NPD's December/Year-End sales data will become available Jan 11." [/QUOTE]
>> From arstechnica.com: [QUOTE] Microsoft is confident enough in their position that they invited me to New York to see how the Xbox 360 stacks up against the PS3 when both are hooked into the same 1080p display and using the highest-quality connection possible. For the 360 that means the VGA cable, which is currently the only way the system can output 1080p; the PS3 is hooked up via HDMI.
* The hard drive problem The Microsoft team defends the drive by talking about how you can delete a television show and redownload it later to save space, but it's clear that these solutions are a workaround. It's a problem, and if Microsoft wants to really get people into buying more content through the 360 and Xbox it's something they're going to have to fix. And I'm not going to be happy if I end up paying $200 for a 40GB HDD.
* Microtransactions and you EA has recently angered a lot of gamers with their new habit of putting up what amounts to cheat codes online for pay, and "tutorial videos" for Madden that also cost money. "Vote with your wallet!" I'm told. Fair point, but the fact that these things are being sold at all makes the microtransaction system itself look pretty bad.
* Ana is a bot It's time to put the systems in the room to the test and check out how the games look and how the Xbox 360 and PS3 handle upscaling. "If you really wanted to be mean you would have run these tests in 720p or 1080i," I say, referring to the issues that Sony is having with those two resolutions. They realize what I'm talking about, and Scott Henson opens a small package and shows me what's inside. "Is that it?" I ask. He nods. "We call it Ana. This is the scaling chip that's in the 360," he tells me. The PS3 has no internal hardware scaler, which means games that are 720p native can only be shown in 720p or 480p; there is no scaling up to 1080p or 1080i. "It was a critical design decision; we wanted the 360 to be high-definition, not just 1080p or some other standard. That's why we included component cables in the box; there is no HDTV that doesn't have a component in," said Greenburg. They assume that Sony didn't include a hardware scaler to keep costs down, but get a little cagey when I ask how much it costs to put Ana into the 360. "This isn't a $1,000 scaler," Henson says, "but it's a good one."
* Mission Impossible 3: the search for an equal resolution We popped Mission: Impossible 3 in the 360's HD DVD drive, which is external, and we also put in the Blu-ray version for the PS3. Both systems were hooked up at the same time, so we could flip back and forth effortlessly to compare the video quality. In this case, both systems were outputting in 1080p, so there was no advantage in terms of resolution. [/QUOTE]
Two Additional Paths of Entry to Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta
>> From the press release: [QUOTE] Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios are ringing in the year with a proverbial bang, as they announced today two new ways for gamers to receive an invitation to participate in the "Halo 3" multiplayer beta program coming this spring through Xbox LiveŽ Marketplace.
Specifically, gamers will be able to receive an invitation by doing one of the following: * Qualifying over Xbox Live and then being one of the first 13,333 "Halo 2" gamers to register for the "Rule of Three" program at http://www.halo3.com in early February * Purchasing the upcoming game "Crackdown," which hits store shelves in the U.S. on Feb. 20 [/QUOTE]
>> From eurogamer.net: [QUOTE] While the rest of the Eurogamer galley slaves whirl themselves into a lather debating which the best games of the last twelve months were, over the next five days I'm going to be your guide through what some of the best games of the next twelve months may be.
Eurogamer's Top Picks for the Xbox360: * Alan Wake * Bioshock * Forza Motorsport 2 * Halo 3 * Mass Effect
Eurogamer's Honourable Mentions for the Xbox360: Alone in the Dark, Assassin's Creed, Blue Dragon (US/EU), Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Bullet Witch, Burnout 5, Crackdown, Eternal Sonata, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Haze, Lost Planet (US/EU), Medal of Honor Airborne, Resident Evil 5, Shadowrun, The Darkness, Too Human [/QUOTE]
>> Muslix64, who released the first hack to decrypt HD-DVD movies, published more details about his hack on the doom9.org forums and released v1.00 of his tool: [QUOTE] I spent the last few days reading a lot of articles on BackupHDDVD, reading a lot of people's post/comments on various websites. This is the time to set the record straight about this new tool and what the impacts are.
First I need to clarify some points. Revocation: In the AACS system, there is 4 types of revocation: * Drive revocation * Host revocation * Device revocation (with MKB) * Content revocation There is no such thing as "title key revocation" and "volume key revocation"
Now, here is a list of affirmations I have seen lately:
* Affirmation 1: You did not break AACS, just the player * My comment: I did not break AACS, but I find a way to decrypt movies and I have bypassed all the revocation system. Not that bad...
* Affirmation 2: The BackupHDDVD circumvention tool won't last long * My comment: As long as insecure players will exist, it will last... And insecure players will always exist, in fact you can extract keys from any player! Some players are just easier to extract the key from. Being lazy, I prefer to extract keys from an insecure player than a secure one. And the AACS spec says "Device keys must be protected!" but they did not said that about volume key, fatal mistake!
* Affirmation 3: The keys can easily be revoked. * My comment: What keys are you talking about? As I stated before, there is no such thing as "title key revocation" and "volume key revocation". If someone publishes only volume keys, there is no way to know from which player these keys where extracted from, making the revocation system useless. They can do content revocation, but to revoke what? All movies before 2007? They can do player revocation, so I will just change the player I'm using, big deal... So what is the AACS revocation system good at? It is good for that scenario: Someone post on the net, a tool that do the complete decryption automatically. Off course the program use stolen device keys from an official player. They (AACS and friends) will eventually get their hands on this program, look at the device keys and revoke them. Making that player unable to play new titles. But the author of this program can pre-extract a bunch of devices keys from different players and release them, one at the time, when the previous one have been blacklisted. The AACS spec says "Device keys must be protected!" so I suppose they put more effort in protecting these keys then the volume key in memory.
* Affirmation 4: BackupHDDVD is nothing, only one person out of a million have the technical skills to extract keys. * My comment: BackupHDDVD is a proof of concept. Picture this: Few skilled persons can do massive volume key extraction, and send the keys to a central server on the internet. Then, they create an easy to use decryption program, with a nice GUI that do online key recovery. That way, my father and your father can backup movies. Or they can send the keydb.cfg file on P2P networks (BitTorrent, E-Mule, etc..) See the problem now?
* Affirmation 5: You can extract keys from software player on personal computer but not on hardware player. * My comment: It's easier to extract keys from software player, but it also possible to extract keys from hardware player (the set-top box in your living room!)
Conclusion: The attack I describe in "Affirmation 4", is not here yet, but it's coming. So I give MPAA and AACSLA a head start. Start to think what you can do about that. To totally block this attack, they need to put different keys on every disk! Now, they only have different keys for different movies. I don't know about the manufacturing process of the disk. This solution may not be possible. The best they can do, is doing shorter manufacturing run of a particular movie, so it would be difficult to get your hand on every "pressing" of a movie. When they design AACS, they assume people will look for the device keys. I don't care about device keys. I do care about volume key. Having the device keys mean that you have to re-implements all the complex crypto and do the full AACS process. I leave all this dirty job to the player and recover only the volume key. There is 3 important things in cryptography: * 1-Private key protection * 2-Private key protection * 3-Private key protection Did I break AACS? I don't know. What do you think? I'm not going to work on this anymore, I'm taking a vacation! [/QUOTE]
Muslix64 also release v1.00 if his BackupHDDVD tool/proof-of-concept: [QUOTE] What's new in this version? * Volume key support * Partial resume of an interrupted decryption session * New file format and file name for key database file.
The key database file is now KEYDB.cfg [/QUOTE]
Thanks to spiff & pike for news/links. Full Story: forum.doom9.org Download: n/a (might be illegal under DMCA/EUCD)
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
>> From 1up.com: [QUOTE] The push for HD has come from all corners of media, but actually accessing high-definition content isn't so simple -- the amount of people with HD televisions running standard-definition content is staggering. But Hollywood's initial investment into Microsoft's service has proved a profitable one, as its direction connection to the TV means there's no technical wizardry needed to move a computer-downloaded film onto the TV. Do I really expect my mom to figure out DVD burning? I can't even figure it out.
No official numbers have been released, but sales trackers report movies like Poseidon, which performed poorly during their box office run, are doing well on Xbox Live -- thanks to the availability of a HD version. It's cheaper and more convenient than tracking down a HD-DVD drive and wondering whether you're supposed to buy Blu-ray discs or not. [/QUOTE]
>> From gamesindustry.biz: [QUOTE] According to NPD's preliminary estimates, around 2 million Xbox 360 units were sold in North America from November up until December 25.
The figure for Nintendo Wii stood at 1.8 million units - despite the fact the console only launched in North America on November 19. Stock shortages were an even bigger problem for Sony. Around 750,000 PlayStation 3 units were sold during the same period. [/QUOTE]
>> A new firmware release for the Toshiba-Samsung xbox360 drive... (v5.2) Disc-LockOn added for chronic open tray consoles. (v5.2) DVD Video disc problems fixed.
The new "Disc-LockOn" feature was specifically written for troublesome ms28 drives that refuse to boot all types of media. Disc-LockOn is additional laser calibration performed when disc inserted returns a cannot identify disc type error. This will not make a bad laser good, but it is the best you're going to get via software.
Official Site: n/a (by commodore4eva) Download: n/a (May be illegal under EULA/DMCA) News-Source: xbins.org
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
>> T3CH released a new SVN compile (rev7469 *proper*) of XboxMediaCenter(info). This T3CH-compile is a complete snapshot of what is in SVN at the time the build was compiled, with just a few small additions.
Special Notes and Noteworthy/XML/Script changes: * Here's the first build of 2007. Hope everyone had a nice holiday! * I'm including a preview of the new mplayer Elupus is working on, report issues here. It's located in the TEST subfolder, simply replace the 2 files in XBMC/system/players/mplayer/ if you want to help Team XBMC test it. * Also see the new NewYears splash made by Smokehead. * Since I haven't seen any newer version of AMT than 0.93.5, I applied the fix floating around so atleast it works now. * I also tweaked the win32 'run_me_first.bat' so it runs and then unmounts the virtual drives when you exit. * I'm also including the 'XBMC Win32 PC environment' .exe that is meant for skinners & python developers, read more about the concept here. It was built using Microsoft DirectX Summer 2004 SDK.
Here's the added stuff since the 2006-12-25 SVN Rev7428 Build: * added: new Splash by SmokeHead: NewYear * added: Default viewmodes for the normal fileviews + better view remembering for the library views. * added: Default viewmodes for various categories in MyMusic are now saved, so that newly navigated to folders will use more appropriate views. For the full changelog (fixed/changed/updated stuff) click here.
Keep in mind this is a SVN snapshot of the current development tree. It's not an official (stable) point release. Use only if you know what you are doing.
>> From mattbrett.com: [QUOTE] I'm extremely happy to announce the "top secret Xbox related site" I've been working on for the past few months is up and running! Dashboard Themes is the first and only site that allows you to preview Xbox 360 dashboard themes as they appear within the dashboard before dropping any coin on them. The current state of the Xbox Live Marketplace doesn't give you an option to preview content before you pay and Microsoft's online components for Marketplace content don't do much better. I came up with an idea to fill this gaping whole, and along with my good friend Andrew McTeer, made it happen.
You can read more on The Why, Who and How on the site itself. And be sure to check out the FAQ if that doesn't cover it. [/QUOTE]
>> An anonymous person at the German 23C3 Hacker Congress showed what could be an Xbox360 hack/exploit during one of the 'Lightning Talks'. Lightning Talks is a daily event at Chaos Communication Congress (C3/CCC). It consists in one hour of several short (limited to 5mins) talks.
In a very short presentation a masked 'hacker' showed an Xbox 360 booting up King Kong (the game, by ubisoft). After loading the game a screen pops up showing an Xbox 360 logo, a Mac logo and Tux (the Linux Penguin) and the words "coming soon...". I also noticed a small PCB is hanging out of his Xbox360 and he's using a laptop (Apple Macbook pro?), but it's not really clear what he's doing with it. Those who followed hacking discussions might remember hackers did some research around the vector shaders in the King Kong demo on the Xbox 360 Kiosk Disc (that ran from recordable media). The demo (and final game too) allow to modify the shaders (they are not checked/signed). However no exploit to take control of the machine was found back then ... so either this hacker found something here, or he's just showing us his custom modified shaders ;) That's all the details we got for now.
If you don't believe the presentation was really given at 23C3, you can download the +560MB WMV video of the complete 'Lightning Talks' Day4 from the CCC mirrors (direct: mirror1, mirror2, mirror3, mirror4, mirror5, mirror6, mirror7). Forward to the 5th presentation and you'll find it there. However note that the video encoding is far from perfect and the audio seems to be broken/missing. The youtube video below shows just the Xbox 360 presentation, with audio:
UPDATE1! Here are some updates from stuff people posted on our forums. Here's another footage of the presentation filmed by someone in the public.
Some high-res pictures of the presentation. A bit easier to see that small PCB here. Pictures by Darkman at c3f2m.de:
Also interesting is the official description of the presentation on the CCC schedule site: [QUOTE] Title: Consolen Hacking Suprise (XBox360) Language: German Speaker(s): Anonym Description: The XBox360 was live hacked in front of the audience - running Linux and Mac OS coming soon. Stay tuned - a Linux kernel is already booting.. [/QUOTE]
HSD'ism.. "I've never gone to bed with an ugly woman.. but I have woken up beside a few.." remember that tonight when you are on drink number 8 and counting..
>> From microsoft-watch.com: [QUOTE] While others look into their crystal balls and make 2007 predictions, Microsoft Watch readers make crystal clear what they want from the software giant next year.
For 2007, Roland Crawford, an IT manager from Jamaica, wants "VOIP from Microsoft" and "SMS integration with more platforms." Microsoft is set to fulfill Crawford's requests with new versions of Exchange Server and Live Communications Server.
Abe Touset, with Dudes Unlimited, in Margate, Fla., uses his Pocket PC handheld like a portable computer. But he finds that hardware limitations limit usability. "Microsoft should recommend manufacturers to upgrade their video memory above the 2MB point, maybe 8MB or more, for better graphics and game play," he said. His request may not be so hard to fulfill, based on where Microsoft is going with Windows CE 6.0.
"I want a device--one device--that is a Zune, a PDA and an Xbox portable," said Mugunth Kumar, a software design engineer for General Electric in India. "The device should be capable of running .NET Framework 2.0 applications. It should also be capable of booting a Windows machine through USB and also act as an external storage media. It should have a disk space of at least 100GB." The device Kumar wants may manifest in next-generation Ultra-Mobile PCs or Microsoft's rumored handheld game console. Given that Microsoft pegged the same folks for Zune as Xbox and that Zune can beam music to Xbox 360, my money would be on the rumored portable gaming device. In 2007? I'll predict, yes. [/QUOTE]
