Xbox unleashed Microsoft released its Xbox today. To date, it's the only Microsoft product that doesn't try to leverage its desktop monopoly, and it'll probably fail until it does.

This marks Microsoft's strategy into the "digital lifestyle" space, an area Sony and Apple have made their own from the consumer electronics and PC end respectively. Microsoft will find it difficult to involve hardware manufacturers in its quest to own all digital devices because 1)hardwares been utterly commoditized and has no money for R&D and 2)there isn't tight hardware integration to make everything work in the PC world. My guess is that Microsoft will enter the electronic home through government mandated digital rights infrastructure, not popular consumer goods. Look for Xbox 2 that only plays industry approved DVDs.