The Empire Strikes Back: Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that they are thinking about entering the crowded MP3 player market. As opposed to making a music only player, they are looking at creating a device that also plays games, and may even carry the X-box brand name. This is all speculation at this point, according to the company flacks, but it has been said that Bill is displeased at how the windows media player has been mishandled by third party manufacturers, and his oft-stated belief that customers will prefer choice over a single device has been consistently proven wrong by iPod sales. It seems woefully kind of late to be thinking about entering the market at this point, but with the kind of capital Microsoft has at it's disposal it might not be long before we are purchasing $200 players that cost $500 to manufacture.Read |  ...read full story