Razer, the world leader in high performance gaming hardware, just announced a program to co-develop the ultimate arcade stick for the Xbox 360 together with the arcade stick community. The arcade stick, developed with pro-gamer feedback, is currently at the prototype stage. For the finishing touches, up to 200+ specially selected top-seed Street Fighter IV pro-gamers, influential modders, and members of the arcade enthusiast community will each be given a Razer arcade stick to test and provide feedback to further improve it to perfection, whereupon the final design will then proceed to production.

Since the company's beginnings in '98, Razer has continually taken pro-gamer feedback and validation during the product development phase to ensure that the design for every gaming product shipped is the absolute best for the competitive edge in tournament-grade play. But in an unprecedented move in the gaming hardware space, Razer is now reaching out to the entire arcade stick community to help make this yet-to-be-named product the best arcade stick in the world. Their feedback will be a huge influencing factor in the design of the final product.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO).

Targeted for release via Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam (for PC and Mac) in early 2012, CS: GO will expand upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched exactly 12 years ago (CS beta 1, August 1999).

The title pretty much says it all, next week Microsoft will start selling a Starter Pack for all Xbox 360 Arcade console fan that have never gone past the casual offline gaming. The pack includes everything you need to jump into Xbox LIVE with the Xbox 360: a spacious 60GB Hard Drive, Headset, 3-month LIVE Gold subscription, and Ethernet cable. The Xbox Live 60GB starter pack can be pre-ordered now from GameStop for $99.99, with an expected U.S. ship date of November 4th. (Ed. note: The same kit should be available on or before Nov. 21st in Europe for 79€)

While the Xbox360 Arcade package was just pictured yesterday, it may not be as fun as initially thought. Rumor had it that there would be five games pre-loaded on that console: Pac-Man Championship, Uno, Boom-Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, and Luxor 2. However, one of the guys that got their hands on the Xbox360 Arcade console got a nasty surprise: there were indeed five games packaged with the game, but they were all just demos. However, this was a version of the Xbox360 that has not even been officially announced by Microsoft yet. Hopefully, Microsoft will put the full versions of the games in the retail version of the Xbox 360 Arcade.