The news on this new peripheral add-on broke during the weekend, and has apparently been confirmed by Microsoft: there’s going to be a thumb-board attachment for 360 controllers.
I’m somewhat intrigued, though not necessarily all that excited. I’m really fond of the idea that I’ll be able to enter text easier than w/ the virtual keyboard, but I rarely input text on my 360, so it’s not been a problem I really wanted a solution to. I infrequently tap out quick msgs to friends, favoring instead to use the headset to just send a voice msg.
I have to imagine that this will make Final Fantasy’s MMOG WAY easier to play, but the real use of the device is to support the fact that msn messenger will be interoperable w/ XBL. Once you start getting people msging you in-game, you’d probably go nuts having to use the virtual keyboard.
I didn’t see any pricing listed, but if it’s reasonable, I’ll probably pick one up… just because.