Tag Archives: steve ballmer

Nelson’s posted up the audio of Microsoft’s CES keynote held in Las Vegas last night.

Get it here. Go, go! You get to hear Ballmer announce Game Room for spring, Natal for the Holidays and that the 360 has sold over 39 million units.

Xbox Live director of programning Larry Hyrb aka Major Nelson has posted on his blog that Microsoft has “no plans” to introduce a Blu-ray add-on for the Xbox 360.

It comes as earlier this morning, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seemed to have confirmed that an add-on for the 360 would be forthcoming. However, Hyrb says Ballmer was actually referring to accessories for the PC.

“During an interview yesterday, Steve Ballmer was asked about Blu-Ray and the Xbox 360. I wanted to clear something up. Steve was referring to Blu-Ray accessories for the PC. As we have said in the past, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360.”

Consider the matter closed.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has told Gizmodo that Xbox 360 is to make use of add-on Blu-ray drives.

Addressing the format in an interview with the site, Ballmer said:

“Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there – you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories, can get Blu-ray drives as accessories.”

He added:

“I think mostly the future of movies is on-demand, actually, as opposed to distribution via physical media. So we’re just gonna keep driving forward and try to make it the best entertainment — overall entertainment, not just gaming, but overall entertainment experience we can.”

Mini megaton for Thursday morning. Find the full thing through the link.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has apologised for his comments at the The Executive’s Club of Chicago last week claiming that a new 360 SKU would be release in 2010.

“I confused the issue with my poorly chosen words,” he said in a statement to IGN. “There is no news in my comments. Things are as reported after E3. Sorry.”

It has been rumoured that a more powerful and perhaps Natal-integrated Xbox 360 was on the way. We can now hopefully lay those finally to rest.

God’s sake. To cut a very long-winded story short, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer said at The Executive’s Club of Chicago last night that a new Xbox 360 will hit the store shelves in 2010.

The machine, said Ballmer, is to have a “natural interface,” with built-in camera with the ability to recognize movement and voice.

The internet, obviously, went nuts, causing Xbox product boss Aaron Greenberg to get on the phone to various sites (including Destructoid) to say in no uncertain terms:

“I can tell you that we are not launching a new console in 2010.”

He added: “We’re not going to have to require customers to reinvest in an entirely new platform,” he says. “We’re able to add [Project Natal] on top of what’s already there.”

And: “This will work with your Xbox 360 if you’re buying one today, a year from now, [or] if you bought one at launch.”

Nelson also threw in his tuppence, saying, “We are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade.

“Project Natal will be an important part of this platform, but we have not confirmed a launch date at this time.”

So what was Ballmer talking about? A new 360 SKU with integrated Natal, probably, although Greenberg insisted in the wake of his comments that Natal’s route to market hasn’t been finalised in terms of time or method.

Back to DEFCON 3. Unlock the mountain.

Jesus. Steve Ballmer whipped out his Zune HD for Engadget at D7, showing off some video and the touchscreen.

Those journos will be doing sex wee over that for years. Salute them with page impressions.

It’s so on. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said in Dallas today that the coming month – i.e. E3 – is one to watch for Mr 360.

“Pay attention to the stuff we’re announcing in the next month on Xbox,” he said.

What’s he talking about? If the 50 billion current rumours are to be believed, a big part of it is motion-sensing.

Come on the press conference. Come on. Let’s see Mattrick take some names and make a pencil fly around on a screen with the power of his hand.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Speaking to videogaming247.com, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter says he expects attendance at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to be 15 to 20 percent down on last year.

“I expect it to be down 15 – 20% this year, but still crowded,” he said. “I cover Best Buy and Netflix, so am looking at streaming, consumer electronics, etc.”

Despite Pachter’s predictions, “Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Nyko, Capcom and probably many, many more will be at CES 2009,” writes Kotaku.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Sir Howard Stringer from Sony will both be headlining their respective company’s keynotes.

CES 09 is being held at Las Vegas Convention Centre from January 8 through 11.

By Mike Bowden

Microsoft super-boss Steve Ballmer reckons Xbox Live is doing the business for the firm, and that Xbox in general is a “home run.”

“If you ask me, Xbox Live is going gangbusters,” he told the Mercury News. “The console is selling well.”

Ballmer added: “I certainly would say the work that we’ve done around Xbox is an unqualified success. No question about that. The product is selling very well. The Xbox is an absolute home run.”

The exec responded incredulously to the question that recent Xbox 360 price-cutting was the result of levelling hardware sales.

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard anybody say,” he said. “All consoles start at higher prices. They always come down through the long cycle.”

More through the link.

Leaping monkey-man and Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has confirmed that the corp is now behind Blu-ray, following an FT interview last night with a Sony exec that said the same.

“We’ve already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like, and I think the world moves on,” he said at the Mix08 Internet conference in Seattle. “Toshiba has moved on. We’ve moved on, and we’ll support Blu-ray in ways that make sense.”

The FT piece went as far as saying that a Blu-ray drive may be included in the Elite 360, or that Microsoft may release an add-on drive in the same vein as the now defunct HD-DVD 360 player.