A New Reason to Buy a High-Definition TV

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nick Wingfield nick.wingfield@wsj.com]
No, its not the looming switch to digital broadcasting in 2009 -- its videogames. Game-industry executives expect two of the biggest new products in the games industry -- Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the forthcoming PlayStation 3 from Sony Corp. -- to drive sales of the expensive HDTV sets. The Xbox 360, which sold out at nearly all retail stores across the U.S. since it was released in late November, is the first console for which all games come in high definition, rather than just the smattering of such titles for the original Xbox. Most gaming systems don't come with a screen and instead are hooked up to a television set. While Xbox 360 works with older analog TV sets, the games are far more impressive on HDTVs. In a sign of how intertwined the next generation of game consoles is becoming with HDTVs, Microsoft executives -- including Chairman Bill Gates in tonight's keynote -- at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas plan to disclose data showing that the company's Xbox 360 system is helping HDTV set sales.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113633376846237022.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
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