Monday, January 07, 2008 3:19 AM
by
johnporcaro
Consumer Electronics Show Kicks Off with Keynote by Bill Gates and Robbie Bach
Bill Gates and Robbie Bach took the stage in Las Vegas to kick off the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). In a seriously packed room, they highlighted some things that will be interesting to gamers, besides the Guitar Hero III battle between Bill Gates, Robbie Bach, Slash, and Kelly Law-Yone.
[Edit: Catch the video on demand at http://www.microsoft.com/ces/. Thanks Devster]
They announced that 17.7 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide, and that c Consumers in North America spent over $3.5 billion dollars on Xbox 360 hardware, software and accessories (that’s $1 billion more than consumers spent on the Wii, and $2 billion more than the PS3). And to top that off, we surpassed the 10 million member mark on Xbox LIVE, six months ahead of schedule.
Robbie announced new content and partnerships from the Disney-ABC Television Group and MGM Studios, bringing new shows to Xbox LIVE Marketplace including TV shows like Lost and Grey’s Anatomy, and movies including Legally Blonde, Silence of the Lambs and Barbershop.
He also announced a new partnership with British Telecom to offer their broadband customers Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), available through Xbox 360 through BT’s service BT Vision, bringing their library of on-demand content to the Xbox 360.
A press release was posted earlier with the details.
We posted a bunch of photos to our Flickr account, and we'll have a lot more from the show starting tomorrow.