Xbox 2 announcement early next year

On January 5 at 6:30pm, Bill Gates is set for a pre-show speech at the Consumer Electronics Show. A key topic of course, the Xbox 2, we think. (Just trust us on this one). The CES is the largest North American trade show, expected to draw an estimated 130,000 professionals. Rumor spread that the announcement was to be made at the Game Developer's Conference, but now that that's come and gone, the CES is the next logical event for Gates to spill the beans. A number of Microsoft's trusted developers already have working versions of the Xbox 2 hardware, so an announcement has got to be just around the corner.