Heh! No sooner has Microsoft's Larry Ballmer dropped his Blu-Ray-for-Xbox 360 bombshell than the PR machine mobilises and the effort to deny it all begins. Microsoft is doing a bit of a Sony, you could say...

Xbox LIVE blogmeister, Major “Larry Hyrb” Nelson, is much lower down the Microsoft food chain than the aforementioned Mr. Ballmer. Yet it befalls to him to sweep the leaves off the company line:

“I wanted to clear something up. Steve was referring to Blu-Ray accessories for the PC. As we have said in the past, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment starts very soon when Xbox 360 becomes the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies. With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies to choose from, Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition.”

And that’s the matter done, dusted and firmly nailed shut to any further debate. Or it would be, except for the fact that Ballmer wasn’t talking about PC at all – the dudes at Gizmodo.com clearly asked him about the possibility of Blu-Ray within Xbox 360, following a line of questioning about Microsoft’s plans to make it the “home-theatre companion of choice”. To which Ballmer, now famously, replied:

“Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-Ray in there — you'll be able to get Blu-Ray drives as accessories.”

In other words this one’s not over until we hear the fat lady warbling. Or the large, bald American bloke, in this instance.