just another stupid idea: software and a USB xbox controller for playing xbox games directly on a high-end PC. Mayb even play multiplayer on a single comp on the same screen or with dual monitors. anyone know if this even exists?

not so stupid, you can find what is called an "emulator" for just about any system. they will allow you to play xbox/ps2/NES/ATARI/whatever on your pc (if your pc can handle the graphics). I think it is only legal if you own the games and system though. I have a friend who owns a NES and Genesis but since his genesis is on the fritz and the NES games rarely work he just plays them on his pc.

Here is a link to an XboX emulator; I don’t know how well they work.
http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/xbox/

I have also tried an emulator called "Gens" which allows you to play genesis games with people on the Internet, which was pretty fun.

xboxes run on 733mhz and 128mb ram, so unless the emulator takes 1ghz to run then Xbox games will run awesome apart from the low resolutions designed for TVs