Despite the Microsoft Xbox 360 being sold over a year before the Nintendo Wii, the sales figures for both machines are getting closer all the time. A recent analysis shows that 10.1 million Wiis have been sold to date, while Microsoft sold 10.3 million Xbox 360s to date. The Xbox 360 got most of it's sales in America and PAL territories, while the Wii sold 3 million units in Japan, 4 million units in America, and 3 million in PAL territories. Sony sold 4.1 million PS3s to date, and all three consoles pale when compared to hand-held console sales. Nintendo has sold over 44 million Nintendo DS', and Sony has sold 22 million PSP's.

Microsoft has a pleasant surprise for all Xbox 360 Premium buyers that got a console made after July 4th 2007. "Yes, we are offering an HDMI port for Xbox 360 simply as another choice in Xbox 360 owners' games and entertainment experience. Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand". Unfortunately, HDMI will only be on the Xbox 360 Premium and Elite. Microsoft has no current plans to put an HDMI port on the $279 USD core version of the Xbox 360.

Microsoft Corp. today kicked off the greatest holiday lineup in video game history by announcing it will reduce the estimated retail price (ERP) of Xbox 360 by $50 (U.S.) beginning Aug. 8. Soon to follow, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) will release its blockbuster video game title "Madden NFL 08" on Aug. 14. "Madden NFL Football," one of the most important mass-appeal franchises in video games, was the top-selling game of 2006 and is the top-selling franchise of the past 10 years. Only Xbox 360 offers a console for all interests and budgets.

Given the relatively high failure rate for Xbox 360s, it's no surprise that Microsoft has taken steps to make the repairs process a little easier. Anyone with a defective Xbox 360 living in the USA can now "speed things along" by visiting service.xbox.com to register your console and setup a repair, as well as being able to track the progress of your repair online. And to sweeten the deal a little bit, Microsoft is even offering a $5 discount for repairs on out-of-warranty consoles if you use the new website, with any machines still inside the warranty period receiving free repairs. Apparently there is also a European equivalent on the way (and possibly a similar site for other areas) but there is no indication of when this is expected to go live yet. You will need a Windows Live ID to use the service, although this is free and relatively easy to setup - anyone who uses Windows Live Messenger or other Windows Live services should already have one.

SAN DIEGO - July 26, 2007 - Today at Comic-Con International 2007, Microsoft Corp. announced it will lower the price of the popular Xbox 360 HD DVD Player from $199 to $179 ERP (United States only) starting Aug. 1, 2007, and will add five free HD DVD movies for anyone purchasing an Xbox 360 HD DVD Player between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30. In addition, Microsoft further solidified the Xbox 360 as the ultimate high-definition (HD) entertainment platform, with key announcements around the HD DVD launches of "300" from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and "Heroes: Season 1" from Universal Studios.

After the AMD - INTEL Cpu price wars it seems that Microsoft is about to enter the same contest with SONY according to an interview over at Hollywood Reporter. The 50$ drop was not revealed if it would apply to all Xbox 360 models or only to an individual model such as the 299$ Core or the 479$ Elite. The reason for passing up an announcement at this month's E3 gaming show could be related to the recent forged Microsoft - EA strategic alliance since EA plans to launch the latest Madden football game, which could help the console sell extra units.

The messenger kit is essentially a QWERTY keyboard add-on for the 360's controllers, offering better support for Xbox Live's MSN Messenger update. The keys seem to provide adequate, clicky feedback and are spaced well enough for fast typing while the pad also has a messenger button that can open up the messaging window onscreen. A new headset comes free with the package since the old headset is not compatible. The Messenger Kit will retail at 30$.

Microsoft faces a second class action lawsuit in California similar to the lawsuit in Florida last week.
The suit alleges that

Microsoft improperly and/or negligently manufactured the Xbox 360 console in a manner that causes the expensive game discs ... to be scratched, rendering the games unusable

The complaint was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Southern California by Christine Moskowitz and Dan Wood. The suit is seeking not less than $5 million in damages for Xbox 360 buyers affected by the alleged glitch.

European retailers HMV, Play and GAME are taking pre-orders for Xbox 360 Elite at the price of £330. Xbox 360 Elite, which features a black casing, 120GB hard disk and HDMI output is due to launch in Europe on August 24 although Microsoft denied to comment on the price-tag these 3 retailers have. The Xbox 360 Elite is already on sale in the US for the price of $479 while the lesser equipped Xbox 360 Premium sells for $399 in the US and £279 in the UK.

Xbox 360 Hacked

A Hacker under the nickname SeventhSon has discovered a method to alter both the DVD key and game region code on Microsoft's Xbox 360, at least for the Hypervisor exploitable 4532 and 4548 kernels. A great part of this hack also involves desoldering your Xbox flash chip something that only the technologically handy will try.

EB Games Australia has recalled all Premium Xbox 360 units from its shelves after what is suspected to be a hard drive related problem. Two weeks ago head office informed store managers to test all stock units for errors, but the company has now ordered every single Premium console to be returned, along with the removal of all Xbox 360 promotional material and dummy boxes. As the recall does not include Core units it is believed to be linked to the hard drives provided with the Premium versions, although this has not be confirmed. Replacement units are expected to ship today (Monday) and should hit shelves by Wednesday.

Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim, said in an interview that the company needs to lower the $299 - $479 price tag to increase sales among those who are not typically interested in traditional combat and racing video games. No word on how much the price will be cut or when it will happen but Mr. Kim's comments come a day after Sony cut the price on it's Playstation 3. Microsoft has sold 5.5 million XBOX 360 units in the United States and 11.6 million worldwide.

According to a poll taken by DailyTech.com, 1 in every 3 Xbox 360's fails. From EB Games salesmen to Best Buy store employees, workers under the condition of anonymity, are revealing a disturbing trend: the Xbox 360 is the least reliable gaming console in recent history.

One could speculate that Microsoft's recent announcement of a warranty extension for the Xbox 360 is a direct response to the increasing public awareness of this problem.

On the flip side, ProductReviews.net is stating the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii failure rates are under 1%.

Microsoft announced on Thursday an extension to the Xbox 360 warranty. While the official warranty at the present time is one year (two years in some countries), Microsoft announced a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message or also known as "the red ring of death." If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge-including shipping-for three years from the console's purchase date. Microsoft has also made some improvements to the Xbox 360 console that will reduce hardware lockups. This may refer to reports of Xbox 360s being outfitted with extra heat sinks to prevent console failure. The whole repair-extended warranty thing will cost Microsoft at least $1 billion, according to the company.

Anyone who's ever had the Red Ring Of Death (the Xbox 360's way of saying it's dead) knows what an unfortunate position they are in. There are various ways to fix the RROD, but most of them indicate that it's time to get a new Xbox 360. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem. In a classic RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization), a customer says they got a broken product, want a new one, ship the broken one to the manufacturer, and get a new one for their troubles.

However, what happens when this keeps happening? A certain Justin Lowe has done this classic RMA procedure with his Xbox 360 eleven times over, and still isn't sure whether or not he'll have to do it again. And with the wide range of problems he's had, why should he be sure? He's lost three Xbox 360s to the infamous red ring of death, two to disc read errors, two were dead on arrival, several had random audio and video-related issues, and one actually exploded. Customer support was at first friendly and fast, but now, it seems to Justin as if they are slow and unhelpful.

Nintendo has continued its recent console success throughout May, with the DS taking top spot and the Wii in a comfortable second in terms of sales. The Nintendo DS sold an impressive 423,000 units and the Wii 338,000 units, with the PSP next in line with 221,000 units, ahead of the PlayStation 2's 188,000 units. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are continuing to lag behind, with Sony's latest console on just 82,000 and the Xbox 360 on 155,000 units - the PS3 only beat Game Boy Advance figures by a mere one thousand units. Sales in May totalled $815.5 million, up 49% compared to figures from last year - a strong month for the games industry.

A six-page long article on Unreal Tournament 3 in the latest issue of OXM reveals some interesting facts about the Xbox 360 version of the game. Developers and the magazine editors said that it is looking better than Gears of War in its current state. The reason for this being that Epic Games improved the Unreal Engine 3 for Xbox 360 since they released Gears of War six months ago.

The Xbox 360 version of the game will support four-player co-op and two-player split-screen in the single-player campaign, which will let you take different paths depending on the decisions you take. Unreal Tournament 3 will feature 18 vehicles and 5 types of turrets. Epic also promises "zero-time to spectacle" thanks to the hoverboard (two of them being linked to a Manta in the picture below).

Just want to clear up a few things surrounding several erroneous stories regarding alleged comments from Peter Moore about Xbox 360 supporting Blu-ray. Simply put...These reports are completely incorrect.

Some online media outlets have picked up this story and are citing Internet speculation of an alleged Associated Press story that does not exist, along with comments taken out of context from a story in ITmedia that appeared back in January. This information is being reported as news and as a result of a recent interview, neither of which are true.

said Microsoft VP Peter Moore. The software giant remains "fully committed" to HD DVD and current reports indicating that Microsoft has a back-up plan which includes Blu-ray support are incorrect.

It appears that Microsoft has managed to find a way to recognize Xbox360 consoles with modified firmwares (both Hitachi-LG and Toshiba-Samsung drives) and start banning them from the LIVE network. Even people using the new firmwares with disc-jitter added get banned. As a result, consumers who try to login to LIVE with a modified console will get an error code (Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D) when trying to connect to the service. These users will not have their account automatically banned from LIVE, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the modified Xbox 360(console unique ID serial gets banned, not the LIVE account).

Sony has seen its biggest quarterly loss in four years after the release of its new PlayStation 3 console, with the company losing an overall figure of $563 million US, with the games division alone seeing a huge $1.9 billion loss. It's estimated that the company loses $240 on each PS3 console sold ($300 on the 'low-spec' model), and experts predict that this is likely to continue for the rest of the financial year. "In the game segment, there was a significant operating loss as a result of the sale of PS3 at strategic price points lower than its production cost during the introductory period," said the company. Sony isn't the only one making a loss with its consoles - Microsoft is also believed to be selling Xbox 360 consoles for a price lower than production costs, leading to the Zune and 360 losing £315 million between them.

Although Microsoft certainly isn't in any financial difficulty, it's no secret that (much like Sony and the PS3) the company is making a loss on each Xbox 360 console it sells. However, Microsoft's president of Entertainment and Devices, Robbie Bach, has now said that the firm's gaming division "will be profitable next year". However, this money still won't be coming from the console itself, but more likely software licenses, Xbox Live and peripheral sales. When it comes to the actual Xbox 360, although Bach suggested that the company does expect that future profits will eventually compensate for the early losses once production costs fall, it sounds unlikely that it will ever make any real cash for the company. Microsoft's gaming division has failed to make a profit in the six years since the firm Xbox was launched, with Nintendo the only major console manufacturer profiting from current sales.

Those of you who have an Xbox 360 and want to buy an Xbox 360 Elite (or already have) will want to transfer the content from their "old" 20GB HDD to your new 120GB HDD on your Elite. But you you're out of luck ... well, until now.

Microsoft decided to give out free data-transfer accessories to those who have both, an Xbox 360 and a Xbox 360 Elite. Until now only those who have purchased a 120GB HDD for their Xbox 360s have gotten a transfer accessory with the HDD.

But to get the accessory for free you have to go through some annoying bureaucracy. First, you have to download, print, and fill out an authorization form with both consoles' serial numbers. Said form must then be sent via standard US mail to a redemption center in Indiana, which will then send out an Xbox 360 data-transfer accessory kit, for free.

If you're really bored and/or are a Xbox 360 fanboy fan and want to watch a guy unpacking the upcoming Xbox 360 Elite console for like 10 minutes you can watch GameSpot's latest "On The Spot" episode where they do a "hands-on" with the Elite.

The conclusion is that the new Elite version of the Xbox 360 is very similar to the original console except for a few differences, like HDMI out, a 120GB HDD (20GB on the original 360) and obsiously the black color of the console and controller. Additionally all of the cables and accessories are gray.

Watch

Anyone who's bought the version of the Xbox360 with the 20GB hard drive knows the underwhelming collection of free stuff pre-loaded on the hard drive. The Xbox 360 Elite will have much more free content pre-loaded on it. For the extra money it would cost to get an Xbox360 Elite, you get three game demos, free episodes of popular television shows, and some movie previews. The three game demos are Burnout Revenge, Kameo, and Tomb Raider: Legend. There will be eight videos on the Xbox 360, including one full length episode of Justice League. All this free content sums up to one thing: Microsoft is trying to show off how their machine is more than just a gaming platform.

Those of you who have waited for a video game to come out know how awesome a beta is. Unfortunately for Halo fans everywhere, the Halo 3 beta is only going to last three weeks. Obviously, most people with invites are wondering why it's going to be so short, especially after putting so much effort into getting a Beta invite. Bungie has this official answer to that question.

...obviously the number one reason is that the longer we're spending resources taking care of the Beta, the less time we're applying what we've learned from it to the final game. And statistically, three weeks is going to seem like a pretty long time when you look at the hours you log on the game.

In short? Enjoy it while it lasts.