It appears as if Microsoft’s kid gloves are off for the battle leading into the next holiday season, as they have officially announced the release date of the third sequel to their best-selling Halo franchise. Having Halo 3 release earlier in the year rather than alongside other big titles, like GTAIV, would undoubtedly widen the install base gap between the Xbox 360 and PS3 as it moves into the holiday season. Expect to find Halo 3 will be available in stores on September 25th in the US and September 26th in Europe for the Xbox 360. In anticipation of the game’s release, Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business has said:

“Halo 3 is much more than a video game release—it’s the biggest entertainment event of the year. On September 25, we intend to deliver a finale that will go down in entertainment history and leave people around the world with an experience that will be shared and enjoyed for years to come.”

Let’s not forget that the Halo 3 beta launches today for those have already received their invitations or have copies of Crackdown. Just jump on Xbox Live to begin downloading the beta client and start fragging online.

With my fingers still throbbing from shredding all weekend in Guitar Hero II on Xbox 360, I was more than excited to hear that developer Harmonix had begun working on expanding the series. Harmonix have teamed up with MTV and publishing-giant Electronic Arts to create perhaps one of the most innovative products in the rhythm gaming genre.

Rock Band is very much an extension of the Guitar Hero franchise, instead allowing you to fill in the rest of the band’s roles. It’ll provide gamers with a platform to perform songs from their favorite artists with their friends offline or online as a virtual band using drum, guitar and microphone peripherals. The collaboration of Harmonix, EA, and MTV will lend some new star power and a bigger budget to the new franchise, as Rock Band is set to change the way gamers interact over Xbox Live. Unprecedented deals with many of the largest recording labels in the music industry, spanning many genres of rock, will provide gamers will a large library of music to perform with their friends. Also leading to the inclusion of master recordings from the original bands rather than cover songs.

Some retailers have begun estimating the pricing for the instrument peripherals, each ranging from $39.99 to $59.99. A rep from MTV did mention the game could come packaged with all of the peripherals or separate, but nothing is set in stone. The Horndog band will be interviewing groupies come Holiday 2007.

Microsoft will be releasing the Xbox 360 Elite this April, that is unless this is all just some cruel April fools joke. The unit will feature a larger 120 GB hard drive, HDMI output, black controller and black xbox live headset. All that is nice, but where is the HD-DVD drive? Where is the integrated WiFi? As much as I love the look, the specs just don’t justify the $479 price tag.

full story Engadget

I still think the 360 is a great product, but Microsoft really needs to bundle everything together. Why should I pay an additional $199 for a HD-DVD drive and another $99 for wireless? Just give me what I want and put one price tag on it. Hopefully one that won’t kill my wallet.

The Xbox 360 horror frag fest, Gears of War took home 3 honors at the Game Developers Choice Awards (think the Oscars of video games) including Best Game. Another title to pick up multiple awards was the “free with Wii” Wii Sports.

See all the winners Game Planet

Gears of War is easily the best shooter of any kind on the 360 right now (so step up Halo 3!) so I’m not suprised at all by this news. If you haven’t tried it yet, grab a Lancer and get in the game.

While it is just one opinion, American Sociological Association’s Context magazine (quite a mouthful) ran an article by sociologist Karen Sternheimer who is not convinced that video games are the root of all evil in this country. What she did was use crazy things like facts to compare how violent video game sales are rising while juvenile homicide arrests are down and how there has never been a conclusive study that proved any link between video games and violent behavior. It wasn’t as exciting as the displays the finger-waving politicians put on, but in this case she actually made a lot of sense.

PDF of the article ASANET.ORG

Putting blame on video games is in reality nothing more than a political stunt for most politicians. They aren’t as outraged as they want to believe. They’re just putting on a show to get themselves some press. They need an issue to be behind and this is an easy one for them because who in Washington is going to step up and applaud games that depict murder, rape and torture? No one.

If you are a gamer, you probably have one or at least know someone with one, because right now the Wii is dominating the market. Sales data for January show that the Wii outsold both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and not by a little either. The Wii sold approximately 436,000 units while the PS3 and Xbox 360 sold 244,000 and 294,000 units respectively.

link to boring numbers and junk TeamXbox

While this is great news for Nintendo, it is devastating to Sony. Not only is their new ultra-fancy-shmancy system getting outsold by a system they basically wrote off as a novelty joke, but they are also getting beat by the more than a year old Xbox 360.

Microsoft is offering additional content on Xbox Live for their new 3rd person shooter, Crackdown. What they are calling their “Four-Play Pack”, basically gives you 4 new agents to use as your avatar. If you are unfamiliar with the game, it is sort of a futuristic Grand Theft Auto. You run around the town taking down bosses and collecting agility orbs to unlock your superpowers. Sweet!

Full Story IGN

Most of the reviews say that the game is a lot of fun, but doesn’t have a whole lot of substance. Hopefully, the 4 new avatars will add to the replay value a bit since your character’s appearance changes as he ages and gets more hardcore.

One of the hottest games on the 360 is getting more maps. Capcom is releasing 3 map packs for Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. The first will be released through Xbox live on March 9th for the cost of $5.

Full Details IGN

2 new multiplayer maps for five bucks? I’d like to see more than just 2, but any additional maps are always an improvement.

Bungie has released some more information on the upcoming Halo 3 beta testing that will be starting up this spring. The main information deals with the release of Crackdown, which as most gamers already know, gives you a free pass to the H3 beta.

The official FAQ Bungie.net

Bungie has the right idea here. Force consumers to buy another product by offering them a chance to try the biggest game of 2007 before the release date. Cha-ching!

According to Epic’s Vice President, Mark Rein, it’s just a matter of time. The highly rated gore fest has been a big hit on the 360 and will hopefully make a big splash (or splatter) on the PC.

Full Story IGN

Hopefully the conversion from console to PC is solid because I’ve seen to many great console games end up average PC games.