Gates touches on Xbox 2 at CES

Xbox 2 will do pretty much everything. Connectivity's what you need these days it would appear.

In an interview with News.com at CES, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has talked about the company's plans for Xbox 2. Sounding rather similar to Sony's dreams of multi-media connectivity, Gates said the new platform would offer TV, photos and music functionality alongside the playing of next-gen videogames. The greater vision seems to be to tie in Xbox 2 with Microsoft's burgeoning Media Centre PC market, producing "great videogaming but videogaming for a broader set of people, more communications, more media [and] more connectivity."

"In the first generation, we had one simple goal which was to establish credibility as a great video game platform. We've done that."

Whilst the software giant is being rather scant with details about the launch of the new system, the MS grande fromage was keen to point out that plans for Xbox 2 had been in the works for a long time:

"We didn't do Xbox just to do a videogame" said the Microsoft chairman "we did it to be part of our vision of the digital lifestyle, and with the next generation, we really get to go there. In the first generation, we had one simple goal which was to establish credibility as a great video game platform. We've done that."

Looks like the race for pride of place under the TV is well and truly on.