"Q: When can we expect an official release date to be announced?
A: ...answer in short is: stay tuned. just like all of you talking about the system around the clock we are working around the clock to finish the system and the games. we will have more announcments soon.

J Allard (Expert): i just want to thank the community for the enthusiam and passion for xbox since the beginning. conversations like this are super valuable and we would love to do this again. in summary we tried to optimize launch around three critical audiences

[1] the game developer - by offering them a no compromises platform with great hardware, tools and the leading online service with live.
[2] the hard core gamer - by putting together a configuration with everything you would want at a compelling price.
[3] the entry level gamer - that wanted to get into next generation gaming and was excited by the media capabilities and wanted an entry level option

i know the multiple configuration strategy has introduced some confusion and concern with the hard core gamers in particular. hopefully this has helped explain some of the thinking that went into it. if you - like me - want gaming to get bigger and want to see more creative games out there we need to grow the market.

J Allard (Expert): like the consumer electronics industry or the automotive industry having a family of products (we believe) will be good for the market. at the end of the day, you guys make xbox a success and we designed xbox for you and dialogs like this are what have gone into the xbox program to date and will continue to give life to xbox for years to come. let's keep the dialog going. thanks for your time. i should also mention that we know a lot of folks could not make it into the chat and will be interested in this dialog so know that we will be posting all of this onto majornelson.com and sorry for the lag (it's been hard for us too). j" [more]