Xbox

There are plenty of Peyton Manning stocks -- mature companies that investors avoid -- even though they're still strong.

Microsoft Kinect -- the camera-based motion controller for the Xbox 360 -- is coming to a computer near you next month. How will an accessory that seems more suited to video games fit with the way you use your PC? Much better than you might guess.

For the past 14 years, Microsoft has kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with a a keynote address that set the tone for the exposition where tech companies showcase their latest wares. But Microsoft is announcing that next month's show will be its last.

At a time when the music industry is Auto-Tuning its own eulogy and Hollywood has all but given up on DVDs, 1.5 million people lined up at midnight events to score copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, proving that even in an era when more of us want our entertainment for free, some things are still considered worth their price.

Microsoft's next quarterly report arrives Thursday, and it's hard to get too excited. It's still the world's largest software company, and it's growing. It just happens to be as sexy as Abe Vigoda. But Microsoft could still innovate its way out of its slump. Here are four things we'd love to hear Microsoft say on Thursday.

Once upon a time, Nintendo was king of the video game consoles, but that day is long gone. Shares of Nintendo hit a five-year low this summer, wiping away any gains from the Wii era, and it took a steep operating loss to boot last quarter. Here's why there are no bonus lives in its future.

Microsoft used to be the most valuable tech company in the U.S. based on market capitalization. Apple took that crown away last year. Now, IBM has dropped the Redmond, Wash., giant into third place. So what's IBM doing right, and what's Microsoft doing wrong?

A research firm that tracks video game sales reported that March hardware sales rose, but software sales plunged again. NPD claims that 23% of software sales in 2010 came from apps, but the industry isn't sure that its lagging sales figures can be entirely blamed on apps like Angry Birds.

Microsoft soundly beat its 2010 sales forecast for the Kinect, a motion-sensor device that enables players to use body movements -- instead of controllers -- to play games on the Xbox console.

Investors are buying into the meme that Windows is dying -- and therefore Microsoft is as well. While tablets are clearly cutting into the giant's core PC business, Microsoft is also showing remarkable agility in building new franchises for the future, the Kinect for one.