Sharkoon presents the successor to their "X-Tatic Digital" 5.1 Dolby Digital headset series: The Sharkoon X-Tatic Pro comes with an improved design, more connectivity options and an additional Microphone Voice Monitoring (MVM) feature.

Designed to meet the needs of Gamers, the Sharkoon X-Tatic Pro delivers its full functional range to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 gaming consoles. With Dolby Digital decoder and Chat support, it provides optimal gaming sound with realistic 3D tone and spatial sound location on both platforms. With its Sound Control Unit (SCU) and associated cables the Sharkoon X-Tatic Pro can also be connected to other sound sources like PCs, Tablet PCs, surround sound speaker systems or DVD players.

Most of the time, the console war winner is decided as soon as a company sells 10 million units of their console. With NPD data consistently showing a high demand for the Nintendo Wii, most would agree that Nintendo has already won. By the 10-million-to-win rule, Nintendo won several months ago. At present, Nintendo has sold around 25 million units around the world. Microsoft has sold 19 million Xbox360's, and Sony has sold 12 million PS3's. However, Microsoft refuses to go down without a fight. Microsoft instead set a new competition, and wants to see who can sell 100 million units first. Microsoft feels that they have a superior product, which will inherently shine as time goes on. However, with grocery, gas, and mortgage prices quickly approaching the cost of gaming, the lower initial cost of the Nintendo Wii just might cinch the console war in Nintendo's favor. We shall see.

A new rumor that the 20GB version of Xbox 360 will be replaced by a 60GB HDD model is spreading around the net. TrustedReviews citing "rock solid source" claims that Microsoft will probably launch the new gaming system sometime in Q2 2008, unfortunately there's not a sign of any price or proof that this is true. The link to the full story is placed as news source, but there you won't find anything more than what I just said.

As part of the total HD DVD denial, Microsoft has now started selling its Xbox 360 HD DVD drive for $49.99. The optional accessory was also officially discontinued by Microsoft last week, so be adviced that its availability from this time forward, will be limited.

An electronics trading firm recently did some professional analysis, and discovered that the standard Xbox 360 has a 16.4% chance of failing. Out of a sample group including dead 1000 consoles, 60% died due to Red Ring of Death (RRoD). While this is certainly a lot better than the 1/3 chance given during last summer before Microsoft significantly redesigned the layout of the console, it's still pretty high. Both the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii have a failure rate of roughly 3%. The firm did not specify the failure rates of specific Xbox 360 SKUs. If they did, they would have likely found that the "Falcon" Xbox 360, or any Xbox 360 with a 65nm processor or an enhanced cooling solution, would have a much lower failure rate. Speaking of the previous 1/3 failure rate fiasco, the replacement program/3 year warranty has cost Microsoft an estimated $1 billion USD to date.

Epic Games is well known throughout the gaming community. Most well known for their Unreal Tournament series and the Unreal engine series, Epic Games has every reason to be at the peak of their game for the PC gaming crowd. However, they are beginning to doubt their fan base. While Gears of War for the Xbox360 was an instant success for the Xbox360, the PC version of Unreal Tournament failed to take off. In an interview, Mark Rein confirms that gaming itself has begun to move away from the PC, and towards consoles. Even inside Epic Games, a sizable chunk of employees play their games on the Xbox360. Outside Epic Games, a paltry 14% of gamers game on their computer. The reason for this, despite the superior technology the PC offers, is the sheer cost of owning and maintaining a gaming habit on the PC. While an Xbox360 is $400USD including games and extra controllers, a PC is upwards of $1000USD for a game-worthy setup, not including games, and only supporting one player at a time.

For the current generation of gaming consoles, the Xbox 360 has several reputations. On the positive side, the Xbox 360 is the undisputed leader of online service and multiplayer, but on the negative side, it also holds a track record of being fairly unreliable. At one point, up to one-third of all Xbox 360 consoles experienced the hardware failure popularly known as the Red Ring of Death, which rendered the console unusable. While many from Microsoft's entertainment and devices division have spoken on the Xbox 360's reliability record, Bill Gates was mostly removed from commenting on the issue - until now. Speaking in a BBC Video interview, Gates revealed that it's now Microsoft's goal to make the Xbox 360 "the most reliable" console on the market.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Microsoft did not unveil an Xbox console with HD DVD capabilities built-in at CES, and has no plans to do so in the future, according to an executive in Microsoft's entertainment business. "Absolutely not," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for interactive entertainment at Microsoft, when asked Monday if an HD DVD Xbox was in the works. Microsoft has been pushing HD DVD over Blu-ray as the format for high-definition video, but HD DVD suffered a significant setback last week when Warner Bros. said it would drop support for the format in favor of Blu-ray. Monday during an interview at CES in Las Vegas, Bell said Microsoft is taking a more agnostic view on how to serve up HD video. He said that it's up to consumers to make a choice between the two formats, not vendors. "We'll let the market decide how they're most interested in consuming entertainment," he said.

Members who paid for Gold accounts may receive compensations for the holidays Xbox LIVE downtime. While nothing has been officially announced, a Microsoft rep said "...we will definitely be doing something for our Gold members that weren't able to get online over the last week." Microsoft still hasn't completely resolved the issue, but company's Larry Hryb reassured that "As people have noticed, we have made good progress. We have a bit more work to do, but we're doing much better now. I know some of you still may be having issues, and we're working on those."

Microsoft Claims Xbox 360 Outsold PS3 2:1 on Black Friday Week; Sony Denies Claim

According to Microsoft, Microsoft sold roughly 310,000 Xbox 360's during Black Friday week. If true, these figures would make Black Friday week nearly as successful as the Halo 3 launch week, as far as console sales go. While Microsoft did not bother to contest the Nintendo Wii sale supremacy (about 350,000 units), they proudly boasted to Next-Gen that they had outsold the PS3 2-1, citing unknown retail estimates. Sony was very quick to respond to the sales figures Microsoft boasted. While the sales figures were not unreasonable (Microsoft claimed Sony sold 155,000 PS3's during Black Friday week, and Sony confirmed selling 121,000 PS3's during the month of October), Sony alleged that the Black Friday figures were falsified and/or exaggerated. In fact, the Sony representative claimed that any sales figures are premature: the NPD does not release sales figures for November until December 13th. Sony does not dispute that the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 on Black Friday week, however.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R to Arrive on Xbox 360 Soon; Sequel 'Clear Sky' In Development

This year's 'most delayed game', S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is rumored to be making it's way over to the Xbox 360 console. GSC Gameworld, who created S.T.A.L.K.E.R, finally were able to attain a license from Microsoft to create Xbox 360 games. Instead of a pure re-coding, S.T.A.L.K.E.R on the Xbox 360 will most likely be a port. However, the license GSC Gameworld has allows them to make more than just one Xbox 360 game. When announcing the license, GSC Gameworld also hinted at a prequel-sequel, code-named "Clear Sky". You can expect to see more of Clear Sky next year, and expect to see it on the Xbox 360 around 2010.

Microsoft has decided to be a little generous this month and is offering all Xbox LIVE Silver members the chance to trial four free days of Xbox LIVE Gold, from 23rd to 26th November, as part of an event being called Xtival. Silver members will have full access to complete Gold functionality, with Microsoft promising a number of bonuses including competitions and exclusive downloads. Current Xbox LIVE Gold members are also being promised a treat, although Microsoft is yet to announce any specific details. This should give all Xbox 360 owners in Europe the chance to trial Xbox LIVE Gold if they're undecided about whether it's worth paying for or not.

Larry Hryb is a well meaning man, and wants to make sure the Xbox Live community is full of people who do not cheat to get any of their achievements. Hryb is announcing a ban on any Xbox Live user who is caught sharing their account with someone who advances ranks, achievements and Gamerscores while the actual account owner sleeps. In a Halo 3 Blog Post, Hryb urged gamers not to fall to the temptation of cheating, and proposed that cheating is probably not worth the risk anyways (what if the guy supposedly helping you stabs you in the back and steals your account?)

Hryb also announced that cheating through modifying save files will result in your actual console being banned from Xbox Live.

In most cases, selling extended warranties on products that probably aren't going to die anyways has been an enormous profit-maker for retailers worldwide. However, the Xbox360 has unfortunately done the exact opposite. For whatever reason, the Xbox360 is notorious for failing. And so, to curb the deficit that the Xbox360 is causing Gamestop, Gamestop is no longer offering extended warranties on the Xbox360, instead relying on Microsoft to do that.

Microsoft earlier this year announced plans to re-design the Xbox360, in an effort to reduce alarming failure rates.

In July, representatives for Microsoft claimed that their Xbox360 prices in Japan were competitive enough, and did not need to lower them. However, Sony's recent announcement to cut both the 20GB and 60GB PS3, as well as the upcoming release of the 40GB PS3, caused Microsoft to re-think their position. To remain competitive, as of November 1st, the Japanese Xbox360 core will cost ¥27,800 (£120/€172/$244), and the Japanese Xbox360 Premium will cost ¥34,800 (£150/€215/$306).

Microsoft recently aspired to steal some of the Nintendo Wii's thunder by creating a low cost counterpart of their console with the Xbox 360 Arcade, and Sony quickly followed suit with the 40GB PS3. However, Microsoft may be working on another version of the Xbox360: one with an HD-DVD player built in. If this is true, and Microsoft does release an HD-DVD Xbox360, then Toshiba will officially be getting paid by two console manufacturers: Sony will pay Toshiba for the Cell, and Microsoft will pay for the HD-DVD player. This rumored HD-DVD Xbox360 may also bring new features to the table, such as a larger hard drive, an HDTV tuner, and a "port for MP3 players".

For a while, the Nintendo Wii was truly the king of consoles. It had all sorts of fun games, it was easy to use, and it was cheap as dirt (relatively speaking). However, with the release of such extremely well done games as BioShock and Halo 3 to the Xbox360, many gamers are picking up an Xbox 360 just to play said games. In fact, just last month, Xbox 360 sales effectively doubled, according to recent NPD figures. Overall, Microsoft sold 527,800 Xbox360s, Nintendo sold 501,000 Wiis, and Sony sold 119,400 PS3s.

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.

Consumers report that Xbox Live is being pushed to the limits, presumably due to the high number of gamers playing Halo 3 online. Various Xbox Live users have experienced inaccurate game stats, performance slowdown, inability to access friend lists, and an inability to perform system updates. After experiencing trouble on Tuesday night, one gamer reputedly called Microsoft's help line in which a representative responded by saying that Xbox Live was experiencing network difficulties. The issue appears to be intermittent, however, as several gamers reported no problems outside of inaccurate stat data such as number of players online. Hundreds of thousands of Halo 3 owners have flocked to Xbox Live in an effort to play online since the game launched on Tuesday.

According to a Belgium source, Microsoft plans to revise the Xbox 360 Core system with a superior version without any change in pricing. The new entry-level system, called "Xbox 360 Arcade: Just Play," will still lack a hard disk drive, but will be packaged with a 256MB memory card. Its namesake comes from the fact that the new system will come with five Xbox Live Arcade games. Additionally, the new Core system will come with a wireless controller, replacing the current wired one. The Xbox 360 Premium system will be tagged with the words "Go Pro," while the Xbox 360 Elite will carry the words "Go Big."

Bungie Announces 4 Player Co-op Campaign in Halo 3

There is good news for fans of the Halo franchise. Bungie has revealed that its upcoming Halo 3 title will allow up to 4 players to game cooperatively in campaign mode via XBOX Live or System Link. As a result 3 new characters have been created to avoid every player looking the same. Bungie says that player 1 will control Master Chief, player 2 the Arbiter and players three and four will get the chance to control two brand new Elite characters, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham. Each character has the same abilities but will start with different weapons.

The Xbox 360 Simpsons edition is a special version of Microsoft's standard $399 console meant only to commemorate the upcoming animated movie. In contrast to previous promos with the console, the limited run will color the entire system: the whole shell, as well as the wireless gamepad, will ship in the cartoon's characteristic yellow; the main unit will also have strategically placed art to recall the movie, Microsoft says.

The console is otherwise identical to the stock $399 system, which includes a 20GB hard drive as well as a component AV cable and an Xbox Live headset. Much like the majority of the Zune's special editions, however, the Simpsons Xbox will only be available as one of 100 units available through a contest to be revealed soon on the official Xbox website.

Equipment makers are reporting that the Xbox 360 will be equipped with a 65nm-made Xenos GPU in the fall and that corresponding foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will see benefits. Supposedly an engineering version of the 65nm-made Xenos has been sent out. Production is to start in May.

TSMC projected sales contribution from 65nm would amount to 5% during mid-2007. On a separate note, TSMC announced the introduction of 65nm-made embedded DRAM in March. Embedded DRAM is one of the two dies that comprise the Xenos. In the 90nm version of the Xenos, embedded DRAM is manufactured by NEC.

In the console war between Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, Microsoft has won this holiday season. Between November and Christmas day in 2006, Microsoft sold nearly 2 million Xbox360's. This was very close to Nintendo Wii sales, which totaled around 1.8 million. The Sony PS3 trailed at around 750,000 sales, which was less than half of the Wii sales.