Gates says future is in video games

I would agree to a certain extent that video games are going to remain a major part of our future. But I think that we need to be careful not to put too much stock into them though…

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, facing increased competition from Google, says the key to fending off rivals is making software more like video games.

The Xbox Live service, which lets owners of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 machine play games together and talk on the Internet, will be the model Gates uses as engineers craft Web services for programs such as Windows and Office. The interactive online features make software more useful, Gates said in an interview this week.

“The idea that you can find your friends, you can talk, you can see who’s the best, you can have contests — it’s redefining how gamers think of the machine, it’s making it more social,” Gates said before his speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “As we spread this idea across all our products, that’s where we’ll take the leadership role.” [Read the rest]