In the meantime, Lester reaffirmed his group's commitment to making Windows gaming "a simple, straightforward, and robust experience" that isn't marked by long game-install times, driver conflicts, and downloading patches. To this end, we were shown a demonstration of "Tray and Play" with the PC version of Need For Speed Underground 2. "Tray and Play" is exactly what it sounds like--dropping a game disc into an optical drive and loading it up immediately, rather than having to install it to a hard drive. True to form, the game itself cut straight to a start-up screen in less than a minute (including the game's own built-in load time). Lester suggested that this functionality will take advantage of the generally faster optical drives that most consumers have, and that some games might be able to run directly off the disc, or use minimal caching. This new feature allegedly won't be exclusive to Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn Windows platform and could theoretically be put into games today, provided it gets planned for in development early on. Lester also commented further on the particular strengths of Windows PCs as a gaming platform--that it continues to be a strong platform both for casual gamers who may be looking to sneak a quick game in between e-mail and Web-browsing sessions, and for massively multiplayer games, thanks to the proliferation of broadband Internet and widespread use of keyboards, which continue to seem like the best tools for chatting and socializing online.