First the Xbox 360 Blu ray and now this. After the recent announcement of Jasper 65nm as the successor to the current Falcon 65 nm CPU for the Xbox 360, there is wide speculation about the release of Xbox 540 in the year 2009. The difference between the Falcon 360s and the Jasper 360s would be that the GPU size in Jasper is smaller compared to Falcon, which brings us back to the topic : Will this lead to slimmer Xbox 360s?

Have you encountered the dreaded RROD that every Xbox 360 users gets nightmares just thinking about it. If you ever came across a RROD, it typically means that your Xbox 360 is completely done for and needs to go to Microsoft for repairs. Microsoft have officially recognized this as designs flaws and not enough quality assurances tests done on their part so they decided to extend the warranty of the console to 3years. Some of you might even tried the infamous “towel fix” but this time lets do some real stuff that will last.

Microsoft for what appears to be the umpteenth time has denied that they will roll out their Xbox 360 with a BD (hate calling blu-ray BD, but hey get used to it). After the recent blu-ray rumors , Microsoft has delivered a message that says, ‘Put a sock in it’. Speaking to GamePro, Microsoft disclosed that they have no plans on introducing a blu-ray to the Xbox 360 console. There you go folks, as clear as water.

In a statement received by GamePro via email, Microsoft states that

Man, I love rumors. It just gets everyone excited especially if the rumor is on something important. Even after the repeated denials by Microsoft, people are still getting the buzz from here and there. Check out this recent one. The Chinese language newspaper Economic Daily News carried out this news about Pegatron technology acquiring orders from Microsoft of assembling the Xbox 360 with a Blu-ray drive. Pegatron technology is an OEM subsidiary of Asustek computers.

After the slash in console prices in many countries of Europe, Microsoft has finally cut prices in four countries of Asia. This looks like Microsoft is really trying to outdo (and has been trying) Wii and the PS3 in terms of sales. Also, another factor that occurred to me was the release of GTA IV. Mostly the combination of the release of GTA IV and price cut may increase its sales ( I didn’t say it will).

Most of you people will still regret the day you bought the HD-DVD addon for the Xbox 360. After Bluray made HD DVD bite dust after winning the format war, whats the possible use of this “next generation” format which won’t even be present in present generation. To make matters worse, Microsoft is issuing a software update for the down-the-toilet format on your 360, thats what you call customer support.

Some people over at Xbox.com reckon it will be the last update. Just for the sake of staying ‘updated’ , I will let you know whats in this update. I am sorry if I bring you tears for this.

When has Microsoft ever been on top of great innovations? Google came up with a cool search engine, MS was like - “Hey, thats cool! Lets build something like that”. And as we know, Live Search was born.

Well this time they got some inspiration from the Nintendo Wii. Microsoft is planning to release its own prototype of the Wiimote at the end of this year. Microsoft could clearly see that the top console players had a controller with motion sensitivity while its Xbox 360 controller was umm… well wireless atleast.