Dell is giving away Xbox Elite bundles valued at $449 (£225) when you buy one of its high-end XPS M1730 laptop. That's all well and good if you can afford a $3,000 (£1,500) laptop in the first place.

It also, however, brings up the intriguing possibility that Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division has done a special deal with Dell along the lines of, "You want our retail operating system and Office products? How's about you also buy a few thousand of these here Xbox 360s?" In this scenario there would, of course, be no "Or else" tagged on the end.

Why would we suggest this? Well, remember last week when we reported on Microsoft's figures for Fiscal Year 2007 and we remarked on how well the Entertainment and Devices Division had done by going into profit. This, indeed had been promised by divisional head, Robbie Bach. We also pointed out that, for some reason, that division also handles marketing and sales of Windows and Office retail (e.g. not to business).

We say, "for some reason" because we're unsure where Office and Windows fit in either as a device or as an entertainment.

Our uncertainty aside, it makes for a very neat of incentive to have your major retail partners actually giving consoles away. Whichever way you cut it, those consoles are certainly sold and show up as such in the figures.