OK the following is a random off the wall theory that I feel like sharing...if only to be able to say " Ha Told You SO!" if it somehwo happens.
What if all this offloading of game companies from MS and rumors of MS leaving the game turn out to be somewhat true in that they are leaving the console market...sort of. What they could be doing is handing off the reigns to Toshiba. MS will continue to support the brand and what not but the console will be released as a Toshiba product. Wouldnt that garner more support from Japan as it is now japan company handling it?
You know what I mean? Somthing along those lines...Could that even be feasibly possible?
Interesting Mass x but does toshiba have the financial power to carry on with the xbox360 ? Toshiba is a very successful company but i don' t think it' ll be interested in this industry, specialy when there is a fierce competition. If microsoft decides to leave a sinking boat, why would Toshiba tries to jump in? if Microsoft fails, toshiba will, it might do a better job in japan but it won' t in the us and europe, those are the biggest markets at the moment...
On another note, i don' t think Ms will leave this industry anymore, unless the PS3 gets huge boost sale on the detriment of the xbox, MS won' t go anywhere. This rumor shows that MS is willing to change its strategy as the PS3 is becoming much more attractive with the 400$ price tag. Moreover, Bluray is the winning format so far and that is mostly because of the PS3, HD dvd cost cheaper than bluray yet it is failing, so the best thing to do is to have a built in HD-dvd player on the 360 + the wii fi and the ps3 will look like shit.
The only problem i see is that if this is all true , we won' t see a 360 with hd dvd before early 2009, meanwhile sony can do massive damage to the xbox in 2008 and bluray would triumph over HD dvd making the latter obsolete.