"Lost in translation, not only a rather good movie starring Bill Murray but Microsoft's phrase of the day today, following yesterday's rather confused comments on a licensing deal for the 360's operating system, which emerged during Bill Gates' current tour of Japan.

The story? Well yesterday Japanese newspapers were reporting that Microsoft's grand fromage had said that the company was open to the idea of licensing the Xbox 360's operating system, much in the same way as it does with Windows PCs. Subsequently Microsoft Japan spokesman Kazushi Okabe told a salivating press that the idea was only at the preliminary stage and no final decision had been made.

Well today having considered its options, Microsoft has dumped on the idea from an almighty height, after rumors ran riot that Microsoft was considering letting third-party manufacturers make their own consoles using the 360's operating system. We're not quite sure how the story got so far, but it pinged around the 'net like a greased eel, with every re-telling gathering momentum.

However Microsoft now says: "There's certainly a potential for other hardware companies to manufacture Xbox some day in the future, but that is not something we're focused on right now. Xbox will continue to be manufactured exclusively by Microsoft."

So that's that cleared that up then. More 360 OS madness as it happens."