While the Consumer Electronics Show is the biggest trade show in the world, it has always been a  big geek fest. It really is still a geek fest, but since the fall of E3, the show has become more attractive to game companies. While CES is far from being a game trade show, some companies have begun to show their wares there, and last year Microsoft had a pretty solid presence as a game company. They're back at CES this year, and it seems that they have some "important" Xbox 360 news in store for us.

The Seattle Times says that Bill Gates is set to make an "important announcement" regarding the Xbox 360 at the 2008 CES, which will take place January 7-10. Unfortunately, that's all that Billy G. and the gang give us. 

The Times thinks that they may be announcing a new Xbox 360 SKU with HD-DVD playback. They also mention possible licensing of the Xbox 360 platform to other electronics companies.

"Microsoft may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies," says Seattle Times columnist Brier Dudley. "In particular, Microsoft could work with Toshiba to develop a digital video recorder with a hard-drive, high-definition HD-DVD drive and Xbox gaming capabilities."

"Microsoft could also make a splash by announcing plans to give the Xbox 360 an internal HD-DVD drive, putting it on par with Sony's PlayStation 3 that has a built-in Blu-ray drive."

These are fair guesses, but they bring me back to last where where we guessed similar things. What do you think Microsoft has in store for us?

Destructoid will be on the show floor, elbowing our way through 150,000+ attendees all next week to bring you news from Microsoft and others.

[Via CVG]