"If you were lucky enough to get an Xbox 360 in 2005, then you already know that there is much to look forward to in 2006. The console is bursting at the seams with the promise of good things to come. Only time will tell if developers can truly harness the power of the big white heat machine, but we're drawing a line in the sand now and making our predictions for what 2006 has in store for our fanboy family.

360 Prediction #1: There will be a significant marketplace overhaul. Xbox Live's marketplace has been a silent power house during the Xbox 360 launch, delivering more new game extras, demos and entertainment content than most people expected. The problem with this ever growing library is organization. Marketplace is getting crowded and finding and sorting content is already a bit of a chore. Expect Xbox Live/Marketplace/Arcade to make it easier to navigate and manage the universe of content available with a few new tweaks. Like Tivo's transition from rev.1 to rev.2, we look forward to enhanced search capabilities, folders and other organizational enhancements.

360 Prediction #2: An iTunes-like service is headed our way. In a way, this is already here. Certainly we have the ability to purchase gamer pics and game enhancements today, but we know this will expand to music and video tomorrow. The seeds are certainly in place for this given the movie trailers that are already available on demand and the music that comes preloaded on the HDD. Like a drug dealer, MS is giving us our first taste of this for free. And with Microsoft accelerating the marriage between the PC and the Xbox 360, it doesn't take a genius to see that they plan on using the Xbox 360 as a gateway to deliver content of all kinds. Then if you want to move it, burn it, store it or otherwise manipulate it, you can do so through seamless PC integration.

360 Prediction #3: An unexpected peripheral will make Nintendo say, "We should have done that!". We know for an absolute fact that Microsoft has at least one peripheral up its sleeve that it won't talk about. In fact, when we inquired about said peripheral we got more than the usual "we don't comment on rumor or speculation." We got "we wish would could say more about it, but we can't yet." What could it be? Lots of ideas, but let the speculation begin." [more]