One of those things that seems obvious but Microsoft hasn't really talked about (to my knowledge).
Well this is from a recent conference call:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY05/MosheLichtman070105.mspx
Well this is from a recent conference call:
MOSHE LICHTMAN: Right. So, obviously the Xbox is first and foremost a gaming platform. This is a very broad phenomenon, I forget how many gamers are out there but it's well over 100 million today, so that is a very important market for us. We said in the past that we see IPTV getting baked into every consumer electronics device. And obviously both Xbox and the Media Center Edition PC are two such examples of where this technology will get baked and offer this capability to operators to offer their services to the installed base of people who either play console games or use Media Center Edition type PCs.
Again, this is a great benefit because they do not have to subsidize the CPE in that case.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY05/MosheLichtman070105.mspx