NBC To Put 3,600 Hours of 2008 Olympic Games on MSN (in Silverlight)

In his CES keynote tonight, Bill Gates (and Bob Costas) announced that NBC would broadcast 3,600 hours of games from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics via MSN on the nbcolympics.com site. The video will be both live and on demand, with over 30 simultaneous live broadcasts. The cool thing is that finally, people who love ridiculous games like the hammer toss will get their fix, without upsetting the basketball fans who wouldn’t dare allow for a pre-emption. The catch is that it’s all happening on Silverlight, not Flash. “One more plug-in to download,” says our smart-as-a-whip Texan intern Eric. Still, I think it’s worth it for a good hammer toss. [Bill Gates Keynote]