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Why Robin Makes Batman Better Sure Microsoft’s recent Xbox Live issues ticked off a bunch of new Xbox 360 owners and led to the company promising to hand out a free game down the line, but it was really just a hiccup says Bill Gates in a recent interview with sister site Gizmodo.
Actually we’re not entirely sure what he says. He seems to start speaking tongues halfway into his whole reliability-issue-was-a-hiccup comment. He says something about downloading curve, or something about him, or maybe he mentions peanuts, it’s hard to say. But he definitely does call the Live reliability issue a hiccup. Can anyone else make sense of the full comment? Maybe he’s spilling some beans about why Live was out. This is what I got:
Xbox live, which was immensely risky, we hadn’t been in the hardware business. We even had a hiccup in terms of ahhhhh… me not downloading curve… on that one reliability issue we ran into it. But Xbox alone has been fantastic success. A huge asset for the company.
BIll Gates Explains the Difference Between Microsoft and Apple [Gizmodo]
Bill Gates final CES keynote wasn’t the most action-packed, megaton-heavy affair, but there was one startling revelation. It wasn’t so much an announcement as it was an implication, but it would seem that Slash is ready to join another supergroup, one that’s unnamed, but we’re calling Merino Wool Revolver for now. The band looks to feature two toy guitarists—Bill and Robbie—and one real guitarist, a clear indicator into which of the three independently wealthy men will pull the most groupie arse. Hopefully, the three will feature as bosses in Guitar Hero Encore: Non-threatening Pastel Sweater Edition. Hey, it couldn’t be any worse than Rocks the 80s.
Seriously, you need to be watching Bill Gates’ farewell speech at CES. I’m sure news is coming, but that picture up there, that’s all you need. If you want actual news out of the speech make sure to check out Mike’s Liveblogging here.
Gates Speech [Microsoft]
Touch down in Las Vegas and a full sprint up the escalator of one of the city’s most confusing hotels later and Kotaku is in the house. CES 2008 is about to kick off proper tomorrow, but Microsoft bigwig Bill Gates is just about to take the stage in the Venetian’s Palazzo Ballroom to deliver his final CES keynote. Gary Shapiro just left the stage to give Bill some extra space, but not before heaping kudos on the man and refreshing the crowd’s memory on exactly who Gates is. Mr. Gates has finally taken the stage. He looks dapper in lavender and black, not unlike an Advent calendar worth a few billion dollars. Bill chats up Sync, Vista and integration across platforms, even mentioning video games in his intro. For the rest of the keynote, make the break.
Bill is now showing a humorous video—which is uncharacteristically and genuinely funny—complete with cameos from Brian Williams, Steve Ballmer, Robbie Bach and… Matthew McConaughey as his high as a kite personal trainer. Yup, there’s Jay Z producing a track from Bill. Oh no, it’s Bono. Bill’s rockin’ an Xbox 360 wireless controller in an audition of sorts with Bono.
The cameos continue—Steven Spielberg, Jon Stewart, Napoleon Dynamite, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore. This thing must’ve cost a fortune.
Make with the Xboxes and stuff already, Bill!
Bill Gates and the Microsoft crew are rumored to be planning something big for next week’s Consumer Electronics Show, but we’ve got nothing but speculation to tide us over until then. Gadget mag Stuff, however, thinks it has—or genuinely has—the scoop on what’s coming down the product pipeline from Redmond. The Xbox 360 Ultimate, Stuff writes, will be hitting store shelves by this autumn and feature “1080p HDMI output, built-in Wi-Fi, hi-def audio output, cooler 65nm hardware architecture and a near-silent fan.” On top of all that, the IPTV service that MS touted at last year’s CES will be good to go.
Also included in the Ultimate? A 320GB hard drive and HD-DVD drive. While we have our doubts about the authenticity of the details, the news seems a bit too matter of fact to ring false. Is someone at Stuff simply letting the cat out of the bag early? Perhaps we’ll know more this Sunday, when we report directly from CES ’08.
BIG IN 2008 – Xbox Ultimate [Stuff - thanks, Richard!]
Bill Gates might be making an Xbox 360 2.0 announcement at his CES keynote swan song, the Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley predicts in a column today.
While I’m not totally on-board with his prediction for Gates’ 360 announcements at CES this weekend, I agree with the main thrust. Dudley believes that after doing some inevitable crowing Gates will wow the crowds with an announcement that Microsoft is preparing to license the 360 platform to select consumer electronic 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.
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