It looks like the new Xbox 360 Holiday Bundles are finally hitting the retailers as CompUSA has begun offering all three bundles on their website.

The Xbox 360 Arcade Holiday Bundle is selling for $199.99 and comes with SEGA Superstars Tennis and five Xbox Live Arcade games (PAC MAN Championship Edition, UNO, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket and Feeding Frenzy), and a memory card unit.

Both the Xbox 360 Pro 60GB Holiday Bundle and the Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle come with two full games – LEGO Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. The Pro 60GB Holiday Bundle is selling for $299.99 while the Elite 120GB Holiday Bundle has a price of $399.99.

All three bundles also come with a free trial membership for Netflix – makes sense considering Netflix streaming support will be coming in the New Xbox Experience shortly.

Technorati Tags: CompUSA, Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle

Microsoft is making sure the Xbox 360 console gets noticed this holiday season. The company announced new holiday bundles for their Xbox 360 console systems. On the low end, there’s the Xbox 360 Arcade Holiday Bundle selling for $199. The new holiday bundle will feature six free games – SEGA Superstars Tennis and five Xbox LIVE Arcade games. The middle and high end Xbox 360 consoles, the Xbox 360 and the Xbox 360 Elite, will also have Holiday Bundles featuring two free games – the LEGO Indiana Jones : The Original Adventures and Kung Fu Panda.

Finally, the other big announcement for this past week involved the upcoming New Xbox Experience. Finally, we’ve got ourselves a launch date as Microsoft announced that the new Experience would be made available to all Xbox 360 owners worldwide on Wednesday November 19th. Just a little reminder, here are some of the features of the new Experience (quoted from the Xbox 360 press release)

“

• LIVE Parties: Xbox 360 is the only device that allows you to create a virtual party on your TV with up to seven friends. With LIVE Party, voice chat while you play games, share photos real-time, and entertain friends all over the world.
• Personality plus: Create a customized, animated Avatar and literally jump into the world of Xbox LIVE. Your Avatar is your game-face throughout the New Xbox Experience and represents your personality—whether you’re a LIVE Party host or chatting with a friend. With custom Avatars created by the more than 14 million members worldwide, Xbox LIVE will have as many Avatars as Tokyo has residents.
• On-demand entertainment: Xbox 360 is home to the best TV and movie entertainment, including more than 12,000 exclusive films and TV episodes from Netflix, and the world’s largest online library of on-demand high-definition TV shows, plus hit movies from partners like Warner Bros., Starz, NBC, CBS, Constantin, MGM, and Disney.
• Games for the community, by the community: For the first time in the history of console gaming, thousands of games developed by the creative community will be available to the public. The Community Games channel on Xbox LIVE will include games made by students, hobbyists, and average Joes all around the world and will be exclusive to Xbox LIVE.

“

Several sites have already published their first hand experiences with the New Xbox Experience. Here’s a sample listing:

• News.com – “Microsoft unveils new Xbox Live ‘experience’
• 1UP News – “Hands-on With the New Xbox Live Experience”

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Holiday Bundle, New Xbox Experience, Nov. 19th, 2008

Feel like putting your mod skills to the test? How about getting your hands on a Lian Li PC-XB01 Xbox 360 Modding Case. Yup.. that’s right – this is a brand new case for the Xbox 360. You’ll need to gut the innards of your Xbox 360 console and move them into the PC-XB01. So why do this you might ask? Well if you’re sick of having a loud Xbox 360 console AND you want something that looks more like a PC – then the PC-XB01  might be just what you’re looking for. It’s constructed out of brushed aluminum and will provide a cooler and quieter system overall thanks to better airflow and the use of a large 120mm case fan inside. Even the DVD drive will be quieter inside the PC-XB01. 

Specs on the PC-XB01 include the following:

• Measures 160 x 250 x 415mm
• Black aluminum chassis
• One external 5.25 inch drive bay
• One internal 3.5 inch drive bay

If you’re not sure that you’re up to the challenge of putting together this system, then check out the online guide for doing so here at Lian Li’s website. It doesn’t seem that bad at all.

Now remember – the resulting system will be larger than the original Xbox 360 console.. but it’ll probably be quieter and cooler running. Finally – it’ll certainly draw the attention of visitors to your household!

[Check it out via CrunchGear]

Technorati Tags: Lian Li PC-XB01, Microsoft Xbox 360

December 4th is shaping up to be a fun day (well at least to me). Battlestar Galactica Razor is coming out on DVD (the 2 hour episode just ran over the holiday weekend and it utterly rocked). For HD DVD fans, the first season of Battlestar Galactica will be coming out for HD DVD on the fourth also. Finally, something with far wider implications, Microsoft will be releasing the Fall Dashboard Update on December 4th for the Xbox 360 console. One of the new features coming out with the Fall Dashboard Update will be the “Friends of Friends” feature which allows you to check out the friends list of fellow Xbox LIVE members right from the Dashboard.

Once the update rolls out on December 4th, the new default setting on Xbox LIVE will be active, allowing members to see friends lists of other LIVE members. You can always opt out of this feature by going to www.xbox.com/fof . In fact, you can change your settings today by selecting one of three options available for your Xbox LIVE gamertag:

• Everyone (only available to members 18 and older)
• Friends only (available to members 13 and older)
• Blocked (available to all members, and automatic for anyone under the age of 13)

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Xbox, Xbox LIVE, Friends of Friends, Fall Dashboard Update, December 4th, 2007

Xbox Live’s Major Nelson had the opportunity to interview J Allard today over at the Major Nelson blog here. It’s a great interview and gives you some insight into the early days of Xbox Live. It’s actually pretty neat to hear how Allard pushed to have Ethernet support built into the original Xbox console (as opposed to a modem port like some people wanted). You’ll also hear the kind of low expectations the company expected out of Xbox Live.. and how they were all pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Finally, hear some of the stuff coming down the pipe for Microsoft Zune and the Zune Marketplace as well as J Allard’s thoughts on DRM.

{Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Major Nelson, J Allard, Xbox Live, Microsoft Xbox

We’d like to wish Microsoft’s Xbox Live service a very happy 5th birthday! The online gaming service began five years ago on November 15th, 2002. Now five years later, Xbox Live has more than 8 million members actively engaged in some sort of activity – whether it’s downloading multimedia content or playing other gamers on the Internet. If you have an Xbox console, head on over to Xbox Live and join in on the celebration. Check out Xbox.com for more information as Microsoft will be celebrating the anniversary with all sorts of events.

Fans of some of the original classic Xbox games will be happy to hear that these games will now be available for purchase over Xbox Live. The current set of original Xbox games include:

• Burnout 3: Takedown
• Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex
• Crimson Skies
• Fable
• Fuzion Frenzy
• Halo
• Psychonauts

If I didn’t already own Halo, I’d actually consider purchasing the game via the Live network!

Now in other news, starting today and for the next day or so, you can download the game Carcassonne for free over Xbox Live. Connect your Xbox 360 console and begin the download!

Microsoft will also be giving away free themes starting today. Themes include Live is 5ive Theme, Return to Castle Wolfenstein LIVE is 5ive theme, Gears of War Live is 5ive theme, Ghost Recon 2 Live is 5ive theme, Halo 2 Live is 5ive theme, and MechAssault Live is 5ive theme.

Finally, every Xbox LIVE member that has been with the service for all five years will be getting a gift of 500 MS points as well as other exclusive content.

Check out Xbox.com for more details!

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox Live, Live is 5ive

Microsoft has officially launched a new Xbox 360 package designed specifically for the family in mind called the Xbox 360 Arcade console. This package is the first Xbox 360 console to include five family-friendly Xbox 360 Live Arcade games, a wireless controller, an HDMI enabled Xbox 360 console, and a 256 MB memory unit.

Games included with the Xbox 360 Arcade package include the following:

• Pac-Man Championship Edition
• UNO
• Luxor 2
• Boom Boom Rocket
• Feeding Frenzy

Microsoft also announced that they would be expanding their catalog of high and standard definition family fun content available via Xbox Live. New additions available for download include Looney Tunes cartoons, three new shows from Nickelodeon, and new Xbox 360 Live Arcade games.

The new Xbox 360 Arcade is available now for a price of $279.99.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360 Arcade, HDMI

GearFuse is reporting that there is a way to hack the Xbox 360 to change the DVD region code – assuming you have Xbox systems with kernel 4532 and 4548. The region code is apparently tied to the CPU key so the hack will only with those kernels listed above. You also have to read/flash the flash chips in order for the hack to work. To be honest with you – I’m lazy. I’d rather buy a cheapo Chinese DVD player that’s already region free (or there’s an easy mod to make it region free) than try and hack the 360.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, DVD region code

Props to Gamespot for the first review of the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit.

The kit is to include the keyboard chatpad along with a new wired headset.  Reason for the new headset?  The chatpad has a 2.5mm headset jack at the base of the unit, which is incompatible with the triple-pronged plug from the old headset.  The pad is in standard QWERTY layout and also has a back-light that is activated whenever a key is pressed.  It has a messenger button that brings the messaging window onscreen.

Just to reiterate information that’s already been circulated – the Messenger Kit is due September 6 and at $29.99. 

Read more about it directly from them.  

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Messenger Kit, Chatpad

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