This NewScientist Technology article reports a Microsoft researcher has told an academic blogger the Surface may become an additional controller for their games console, the Xbox. From the article: "Microsoft has so far spoken near-exclusively of Surface appearing in places like hotel lobbies and retail stores - the first Surfaces in the wild are being used to sell phones by AT&T (video).
People have speculated how great they would be for gaming, but there's been no thumbs up from Microsoft on the idea. But researchers from the company apparently told researcher Stefano Baraldi that they were considering the possibility of using the surface as a controller for an Xbox console. It's not much, but it's more than has been let slip before.
Baraldi rightly points out that Surface could provide a great interface for strategy games like Command&Conquer, letting you look down on and interact with a map of a battlefield. But I'm sure more innovative possibilities would also, er, surface were the hookup to be made possible."