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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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GC: 360 HD-DVD this autumn

Forza this winter, with three new Live Arcade titles too.

As well as news of securing FIFA and PES for a year, Microsoft's Leipzig conference brought with it a bit of release date clarity and a bit of release date confusion - with the HD-DVD drive now listed as "autumn" (or "fall" in American) and Forza Motorsport 2 swerving perillously close to 2007 with its new "this winter".

Winter obviously spans the two years, but it's the first time Microsoft's used the description, having previously referenced the "holiday season" e.g. Christmas. Slip of the tongue? We're badgering them about it right now.

In other software news, the company said it had three more board games in store for Xbox Live Arcade - Carcassarone, Alhambra and Settlers of Catan - although we somehow managed to keep our seats when we heard.

Otherwise it was all relatively well known stuff - with demos of Viva Pinata, Live Anywhere's mobile phone functionality and the like bouncing off our E3-hardened brains. We'll be bringing you more on the conference shortly, or you could just read the live-text archive instead of waiting for us to cynically cycle them into news stories.