One of the hottest rumors going around the Intertubes these days is that the Apple TV will be able to play games. The main cannon, or "smoking gun," if you will, used in defense of this theory is MacScoop's claim that an internal iTunes file provides clear evidence that the Apple TV will indeed be capable of playing games.

The iTunes file in question contains the strings that appear in dialog boxes. One string in particular reads, "Are you sure you want to sync games? All existing games on the Apple TV "^1" will be replaced with games from this iTunes library." MacUser, however, contends that this string of code is hardly any evidence.

According to MacUser, anybody who takes a quick look at the file /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localizable.strings will find that the section of strings that applies to the Apple TV is "pretty much identical to the section of strings for the iPod (with, of course, all instances of "iPod" replaced with "Apple TV")."

Hence, MacUser says, the only thing the whole "string theory" proves is that "the developer in charge of updating the strings knows how to use copy/paste and find/replace." Of course, Apple could still bring games to the Apple TV in the future, but as MacUser says, Apple is more likely to announce the feature with much fanfare, not hiding it in a text file.