Ah, you just have to love the undisputed speculative power of the internets! I mean where else can you go to get movie times, step-by step directions to a place you’ve never been before, a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of information, and spoilers or game leaks?

So here’s the score - first word hits the net that Microsoft could adopting Mii-like avatars. Then there’s the rumor that they’re ripping off coming up with a SingStar type game titled Lips. Then it “leaks” that they are possibly developing a game show channel to help cement their push into the casual market.

After all the speculation formed on unfounded “leaks” it turns out that a lot of this info was taken from marketing surveys aka “Let’s just ask a test group a bunch of questions and take it from there.”

A Microsoft representative confirmed this by saying, “We regularly test all kinds of concepts in market research with our Xbox community,” adding, “These may or may not be real products in development or ever be released to consumers.”

The red herring in the above phrase being the “ever be released to consumers” part. Intellisponse, the company behind the surveys, has also taken the time to give out the usual party line by labeling the leaks “rumor” and “speculation.”

E3 2008 should be interesting.