"The reason we got into Xbox was not just for gaming," he [Gates] said. "It's a general purpose computer."

Brian Crecente at Kotaku got a something of a scoop with his recent Bill Gates interview, I think. In the story, Gates talks about the wildly successful Xbox 360 which has sold in huge numbers - something like ten and a half million consoles with five million Xbox Live subscriptions on top.

The Xbox 360 is able to do an awful lot for a gaming console, isn't it? Think about it: wouldn't an Xbox 360 be all the computer most people ever need? It's nice to have the openness of a PC and be able to install hardware and software on it - or even a non-Microsoft operating system.

However, many people couldn't care less about geeky things like that. They want something that's simple to use, secure, looks good and is fun to use. And cheap, too. Your average PC doesn't deliver on any of those, but an Xbox 360 does (although it's missing that magic Wii controller...)

With software as a subscription, you don't need to install anything on a computer any more. Just use a browser. Storage? Well, you've got broadband, so store broadband at an online repository somewhere, or burn it to an optical disc as a back up.

Microsoft would love it if the Xbox became the Standard Home Computer as well. It would control the hardware and the software, and incur far less in support costs. Development costs would likely be lower too, thanks to the closed nature of the platform.

The Xbox isn't quite ready to take over as a general-purpose computer, but I can I see it ending up as that pretty soon. Actually, I'm way slow to think that... Ben Heck built an Xbox360 laptop last year already. :)