Just stumbled across this today on Tom's Hardware. The Xbox 360 will be getting a Blu-Ray peripheral. I may not have to buy a PS3 after all...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/xbox-blu-ray-360,5272.html

"After months of rumors and denials, the XBOX 360 with a Blu-ray disc drive is due to be manufactured soon and shipped in Q3 of 2008. Pegatron Technology, an OEM subsidiary of Asustek Computer, is reported to have received the winning order from Microsoft for a Blu-ray equipped XBOX 360.

Earlier reports cited Lite-On as the company with the privilege of building the new console for Microsoft. Lite-On is also currently one of the suppliers of the internal DVD drive fro the XBOX 360.

One of the strong points for Sony’s Playstation 3 has been the integrated Blu-ray player. The PS3 had the ability to draw both gamers and audio/video enthusiast, and this was proving to be a major advantage over its XBOX rival. It is estimated that 85% of Blu-ray players in use are PS3s. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer had admitted that Microsoft had been working on support for Blu-ray under Windows during this year’s Mix08 conference. Rumors began to swirl and many began to expect Microsoft to announce a Blu-ray peripheral for the XBOX 360.

However, Microsoft came out and denied all rumors, stating that they were not exploring any kind of Blu-ray add-on or in talks with Sony about integrating Blu-ray into the XBOX experience. The software giant stated they would continue to invest in its XBOX Live online service as the means of high-definition content delivery. Toshiba received a crushing blow earlier this year at CES that Warner Brothers would be Blu-ray exclusive. This eventually led to Toshiba withdrawing from the HD format war and the demise of the XBOX 360’s HD-DVD add-on. It is interesting to note that sales of the XBOX 360 lagged behind Sony’s PS3 in the month of February, the same month Toshiba withdrew.

Let's face it.  Coagulation was kind of close to being the remake of Blood Gulch.  And we know HALO 3's Valhalla wasn't quite Coagulation or Blood Gulch.

A new map is being released by Bungie for Halo 3.  It's called Avalanche it is a near-remake of Sidewinder.  "It has the same familiar U-shape, multiple ways from base-to-base, and a whole sandbox full o’ vehicles to play with."

Avalanche and the rest of the Legendary Map pack will be launched on April 15th and cost 800 marketplace points (or $10 for those counting beans at home).

In an interview Bungie map makers have described Avalanche.

• No ladders in this map (or since HALO 1 for that matter).  Thus, they had to change the interior of the bases.
• Hallways connecting bases removed because it was too easy to overtake vehicles in those tight quarters.  Bungie wants gamers out in the open sections of the map.
• Man cannons have been added to help you get around the map on foot.
• There are new attack routes.
• More vehicles with icy texture maps.

I look forward to the map and hope it brings back memories.  I expect it to be as close to Sidewinder as Coagulation was to Blood Gulch.  That will be enough for me to spend $10 for the map pack.

Strikingly during the interview, Avalanche level designer Niles Sankey said "we also needed another big vehicle map" when asked why they remade Sidewinder.

Queue Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segment called "Really!?!".

If Bungie keeps thinking that we need bigger maps, I guess we won't be seeing Chill Out, Rat Race, Prisoner, or Hang 'Em High anytime soon.

I didn't see this posted anywhere else, so I thought I would share this info. If you could care less about achievements, have never played the original Rainbow Six: Vegas, or if you have already loaded this game onto your profile (ie. put it in your Xbox 360), then you can go ahead and ignore this thread.

Unfortunately Ubisoft has accidentally glitched one of their achievements by rewarding those that completed the previous RB6V on realistic difficulty and/or reached the rank of elite. The 'prize pack' that they provide, automatically promotes you to the rank of Specialist, along with giving you some extra XP and gear. Normally this would be a good thing, but this promotion forces the player to skip the rank of Private First Class, which turns out to be an achievement. The odd thing is, is that this glitch seems to affect ANYONE who has played the previous Rainbow Six, and not just those that have reached the 'prize pack' specifications.

In conclusion, if you have played the previous Rainbow Six: Vegas, and still want one of the easiest achievements in the game, then I would suggest you follow the instructions in the link below.

http://www.achieve360points.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75691

Midnight is the "Gamer Spotlight" on the "Inside XBOX" blade on your XBOX 360 console.  Way to go Midnight.

As I'm sure many of you are aware, I have been unable to play COD4 multiplayer on Xbox Live due to the "Create-A-Class data corruption" issue that has been haunting about 2% of Xbox 360 players since the game's launch.

The long-awaited patch that finally came this weekend fixed it. Or did it?

So I joined up on some games of Free for All death matches, figuring I'd get to a Level 4 and then change my weapons. Level 4 came after two or three games. I then went to "Create-A-Class" and found out the true meaning of data corruption. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "If the data wasn't corrupted before, it sure the hell is now!" Both primary and secondary weapons on all 5 slots were set to "M-9", and none of the weapons nor perks were unlocked. Read: I cannot create custom classes w/ different weapons/perks. I can only use the default "Assault", "Heavy Gunner", etc.

I found no mention of the "Create-A-Class" phenomenon in the official patch release announcement from fourzerotwo on InfinityWard's website:

http://www.infinityward.com/community/forum/index.php?topic=20255.0

Hey Everyone –

Just as I called it, the Xbox 360 patch for Call of Duty 4 passed certification by the weekend, and started hitting consoles near you this morning. For those of you wondering what’s been changed, a full list of the newness is:

New Kill Cams - Everything that can kill you has a Kill Cam now. Grenades, Airstrikes, Claymores, C4, M203 Rounds, RPGs, anything. So jump online, get owned alittle and check them out. They’re awesome, especially Grenades and M203 shots that go across the map and through a window.

Host Migration - Host migration was added, so now when the host leaves you won’t get dropped back to your own lobby by yourself. Everyone will stay together. Host Leaves, everyone returns to lobby, selects next best host, and the game starts up again. No more re-inviting, re-partying up because a host ended the game.

Edit: Less than 24 hours after I wrote this story, another friend's Elite bites the dust. Sorry doughgeek. 35 in 50 gamers have failed consoles.

While 50 gamers is a small sample size for Microsoft, it's the majority of my gaming friends.

According to my friend's list, 34 of 50 gamers reported that their XBOX 360's have failed since purchase.  That's 68% for those of you scoring at home.  That's much higher than the 16% reported last week and 30% reported by retailers in mid-2007.

I posed the question to the 90 gamers on my friends list three weeks ago after my XBOX 360 Elite failed.  50 out of 90 gamers responded and 34 of them said that they have had to send off their XBOX 360 for repair or replacement at least once.

In one case, someone had to send their system to Microsoft 7 times for repair.  Another person reported that her husband also had to send off his system for repair as well.  There were several cases of people having to send off their console multiple times.

I am a heavy user.  My XBOX 360 is in use 10-25 hours a week.  I suspect that most of the gamers on my friends list are also heavy users.  However, the failure rate from my perspective is outrageous.

Is the XBOX 360 supposed to be an appliance or a gadget?

Am I supposed to look past these extremely high failure rates in my social sphere?

40 gamers did not respond to my questionnaire that was sent to their XBOX Live message inbox.  Even if they all said that they have not had to replace or repair their console, 38% of my friends list will have had failed XBOX 360's. 

XBOX 360 and XBOX Live is about being social.  It's about communities of gamers.  In my community, upwards of 60% of gamers have experienced a failed XBOX 360 in response to my survey.

I get that 50 gamers is a small sample. But, 50 friends is a good amount of friends and I've met all but about 10 people on my friends list.

Oh, I'm not on my friends list.  I've owned a Core, Premium, and Elite system.  They've all failed in 6-12 months.

What can we do? 

At least Microsoft is handling the situation by offering extended warranties and repairing consoles at no charge.  But, it's hard to be an XBOX evangelist with these high failure rates.

I'm sending in my XBOX 360 Elite back to Microsoft for it to be repaired. My optical drive has gone out. My consoles acts as if it has no disc in the disc drive.

How prominent is this problem? Microsoft has a knowledge base article that deals with the error --- so I'm not the only one who has this problem. Anyone else having troubles with your disc drive?

My drive didn't totally go out at once. My drive started to fail in early November after the release of Call of Duty 4. For some reason, CoD4 would fail to boot about 50% of the time. Other games played fine. By early January, Halo 3 and CoD4 would fail to boot 90% of the time. Rock Band (and a few other games) would play just fine. By late January, 99% of the time all discs would not work even my trusty Rock Band disc.

I must have tried two dozen "tricks" to try to get my discs to boot. All of them have quit working. With no more tricks up my sleeve, I called Microsoft. After 10 minutes on the phone, Microsoft issued a repair order. I should have another Elite coming back to me in no longer than 3 weeks (1 week for me to get the empty shipping box - 2 weeks for Microsoft to repair the box and send me a replacement).

This will be my 4th XBOX 360 console.