Last April, reports surfaced that Microsoft had approached then-free-agent Conan O'Brien to host an original talk show on Xbox Live. At the time, few details were known about the proposed show other than O'Brien eventually turned it down for his TBS late-night chatfest, which currently ranks number one in viewers 18-49 when DVR viewing is included.

　　Team CoCo was reportedly intrigued by Microsoft's offer of an Xbox Live show.

　　However, Gamasutra special correspondent Chris Morris has now revealed some behind-the-scenes details of the almost-deal, which were made public at last month's Consumer Electronics Show. During the expo session "Hollywood Creative Masters," Conan executive producer Jeff Ross said that talks did begin between Microsoft and Conan's management team. Ross said his team was intrigued by the offer, and it made his team appreciate the power of the Internet.

　　"It was interesting to sit and look at it and say, 'It would be great to be involved in this,' but at the end of the day, we had some eventual television offers and we basically shied away from the other," said Ross. "But we knew we had to be involved in the technology side. We knew we had to be involved in the Internet no matter what we did."

　　However, concerns over the new format ultimately scuttled the negotiations. "The Xbox thing--a lot of the conversations were, 'Well, it's a show, but it's not a show and there are no breaks, but maybe there are breaks and it's not 60 minutes, it's this,' and nobody really knew what it was," Ross reportedly said. "So it was really going to be a leap of faith to jump in with these guys and figure something out which we didn't know. Plus there were 100 people who were out of jobs and that didn't bode well for that."

　　Despite the ultimate unraveling of the talks, Ross says that he came away impressed with Microsoft's moves into original programming, particularly its reported attempts to bring cable TV to Xbox Live.

　　"You meet with these guys and they show you all this stuff that they're developing and it's mind-blowing," Ross said. "I think it's coming and it's big. It's just that we weren't in a position at that point to figure out what it was."