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Gates brings it home for Microsoft

Microsoft also revealed new content partners for its Media Center PC. The remote-control-based entertainment software will add new channels from Nickelodeon, Fox Sports and Showtime. The SportsLounge from Fox will allow people to watch a game while simultaneously getting scores and video from other games. Showtime's channel will offer hundreds of hours of programming and allow non-subscribers to purchase individual episodes of some Showtime programmes.

Vista was also the prime topic at last year's CES, where Gates displayed some of the operating system's consumer features for the first time.

Gates was joined on stage by Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, who talked specifically about entertainment. On the Xbox front, Microsoft surpassed its goal of shipping 10 million Xbox 360s by the end of last year, by shipping 10.4 million of the game consoles. Microsoft also talked about new software that will allow the Xbox 360 to serve as a set-top box for those who subscribe to Microsoft's Internet Protocol-based television. The software will be available by Christmas this year.

Bach also noted that the biggest thing to happen for the Xbox 360 this year will be the arrival of Halo 3 and then showed a trailer for the highly anticipated game.

Using an Xbox Live for Windows service that will debut this summer, players can invite their friends to play games, with some playing on the Xbox 360 and others on Vista-based PCs, Bach said.

Five service providers are currently deploying Microsoft's IPTV software, while eleven more are in the pipeline.

While most of the keynote was devoted to products shipping this year, Gates ended by re-creating onstage some elements of the concept home of the future that Microsoft has on its corporate campus in Redmond. Gates also showed a teenager's room that uses OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology to display images on the walls and a kitchen that uses RFID to make dinner recommendations based on the ingredients on hand.

But Microsoft's entertainment ambitions extend beyond the home. Gates promoted a partnership with Ford. Starting this autumn, a dozen lines from Ford and Lincoln Mercury will feature Sync, a Microsoft-based system for, among other things, voice dialling of mobile phones and having text messages read to the driver through a car's sound system. Ford plans to add Sync to all its models by 2009.

"We're not leaving the car out, we're connecting you even there," Gates said.

As always, the keynote included a few jovial videos. Poking a bit of fun at himself, Gates showed off a highlight reel of speeches from years past, including flubs and outtakes. A second video, coinciding with HP's media server, featured Gates talking about the media in his home, including Ballmer's infamous Monkey Boy video.

This was not the first time Gates has incorporated the infamous "developers, developers, developers" video into a keynote. He used it as part of his 2001 Comdex keynote.