All Microsoft has to do is "build that app, drop it in, party enable it and we’re good to go" says Xbox senior strategist Rob Gruhl. So while the movie party feature isn't specifically planned on, since "those types of things are certainly the aspiration," according to Xbox marketing head Albert Penello and they've discussed photo sharing, it looks like we can definitely expect to see some social app action like that in the future. [MTV Multiplayer]

The weight is even more impressive, as it's been more than halved from 8.5 to just 4 pounds. These skinnified reductions were possibly only through new components—a new slimline DVD/CD-R and 2.5-inch drive help reduce bulk and weight, a Wi-Fi adapter makes for easy networking and then a pair of Iceberg4 Pro Chip Cooling fans keep it all from melting.

Sure, it'll play Xbox titles. But it's also fully packed XBMC media center and every emulator around. [Xbox Scene via technabob]

[Kotaku]

The first thing you notice while using the new UI is how fluid and dynamic it is. Microsoft wasn't content to just create some static screens and call it a day. Many of the menus have multiple animations and 3D elements at work, which give the software life. Your avatar sits on the menu, fully rendered, loafing around on your screen. Moving from section to section is so fluid that you stop thinking about what you're doing with the controller. There's also the Spotlight menu subset, which highlights the games and features of the Xbox you use the most, so that you don't have to waste time surfing menus. And this efficient mindset extends thoughout the entire Xbox UI.

A new change is that when you hit the home button, a medium-sized box pops up in the middle of your screen with multiple blades that can be shuffled by moving the analog stick left and right. This is a quick menu of sorts that streamlines the entire menu into a no nonsense, text based interface that lets you browse and navigate whatever information you need with a swiftness. You can look up friends, change games, adjust settings, go to your gamer profile, or launch the full dashboard. This was designed around the original Xbox UI, with the seasoned gamer in mind who just wants to carry out a specific task with no fuss. What's nice it is that it doesn't overwhelm the screen like the original UI did in terms of size and layout.

We've touched on it before, but the level of customization you can put into your avatar is nuts. Clothes, Face, Body and Hair are all heavily modifiable within the avatar creator. And they not only feature prominently in menu system and Xbox Live's social features, but they will also be integrated into more games down the road.

The ability to rip games to your HDD is a neat feature that can not only cut down on load times, but the sound that comes with using the DVD drive. It's not intended to archive your entire games library, but rather the few games you play ALOT. In this context, I see it being very handy. It still requires you insert the game disc when you start a game each time, just so it can verify it's not a pirated copy, but after that, the disc drive lies dormant.

I didn't get a look at the Netflix software in this version of the UI, but based on the performance of the Roku and the screens of the Xbox Netflix interface, you can pretty much guess what that experience will be like.

Theme junkies will be glad to know that Themes 2.0 for NXE are far more integrated into the UI than before. Instead of a background and matching color scheme, Themes 2.0 now has features like 3D renderings instead of tiles behind each menu object, that relate to the theme in some way.

Party-style gaming is another new feature Xbox put a lot of effort into and are touting as a main feature in this new UI. I didn't get to see a ton of this mode in action, but I got the sense it will be popular amongst groups of friends who don't always want to play the same game the entire time they're on Live, but want to stay in touch just in case. The menus for creating parties are pretty simple, as you only need to select create party or invite friends and add friends from a list.

Lastly, the Video and Game Marketplaces has been revamped and are pretty well thought out. There are multiple ways to search for content, whether it be XBLA games, XNA games, additional game content, or video, you can search by name, genre or category, and the list continuously repopulates itself as you refine your search string letter by letter. Featured titles appear in the front menu.

Overall, the New Xbox Experience seems to be focused around an polished and efficient experience. We'll be getting our hands on the final version soon, so keep your eyes peeled for a full review. [New Xbox Experience on Giz]

In about six weeks, you'll get the ability to create your Xbox mini-you, as well as get access to themes and a new games channel that lets you browse visually and includes new games details pages. Also up, a Spotlight channel that'll focus on popular and new content—games, movies, demos etc. [Kotaku]

Constructed solidly out of aluminum and steel, turn as hard as you want, but the RennSport doesn't look to be going anywhere soon. Meanwhile, users can adjust height and angle of the wheel, which is more than you can say for most real steering wheels.

The catch is, of course, the price. At $130, this wheel holder costs as much as many nice wheels themselves. But then again, the RennSport works with most major models and looks like the best thing for racing simulation since this little number. So you could do much worse. [BusinessWire via Digital Trends]

The only catch is that the mod will require you to get your hands dirty; soldering is a must. But Extreme-Mods will be offering players the option to send in their controllers and have the magical modding elves do all the hard work. So you can cheat at Halo and COD4 without having any sort of technical knowledge whatsoever. Score!

Neither pricing for the standalone kit nor the install service has been announced. [XCM USA]

Xbox Live will be offline, and you won't even be able to bitch about it because the official Xbox forums will be down as well. Be-masked Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson confirms that there will be no updates whatsoever to the service, especially not the Xbox Experience update due this fall, so quit bugging him about it. Zune, for its part, will lose Zune Social, the Zune Marketplace and the Zune.net forums, again with absolutely no new features when the service is back up and running. So, commenters, how are you going to deal with what I've just decided to name the Great Microsoft Service Outage of 2008? Read a book? Go to work? Not care because you've never even seen a Zune in real life? [Xbox Live's Major Nelson and Zune Insider]

UPDATE: It appears that we were misled by Cheap Ass Gamer as part of a prank contest. Running fabrications like this one does not help a site's credibility.

Household Gamers: Keep the Remotes Handy and Ready to Go with Energizer(R) Power & Play Charging Systems

While disposable batteries are an appropriate solution for many gamers and households, some - especially heavy battery users - prefer to rely on a rechargeable option. That's why - for active gamers - Energizer is now offering Energizer(R) Power & Play charging systems designed specifically for Wii(R) by Nintendo(R), Microsoft(R) XBox 360(R) and Sony(R) PlayStation 3(R) wireless controllers.

The Energizer(R) Power & Play charging system for Wii(R) by Nintendo(R) remotes, which retails for a suggested price of $39.99, comes with rechargeable batteries, replacement battery doors and a charging station. Replacement rechargeable batteries and covers are also available for $10.99. The rechargeable battery pack for the Wii(R) Fit by Nintendo(R) is equipped with an audible and LED low-battery indicator and has a suggested retail price of $29.99.

The Energizer(R) Power & Play charging systems for the Microsoft(R) XBox 360(R) and the Sony PlayStation 3(R) include a charging cradle and A/C powercord and have a suggested retail price of $29.99. Additional charging cables are available for $12.99 for the XBox 360(R) and $9.99 for the PlayStation 3(R).

Sleek, convenient and easy to use, all of the new Energizer(R) Power & Play charging systems will be available in stores this month, just in time for the busy holiday season. Created through a licensing agreement with Performance Designed Products (PDP), the new Energizer(R) Power & Play charging systems mark the first time that Energizer has partnered with a manufacturer in the gaming arena.

"With the popularity of gaming, we wanted to give gamers two viable solutions to power their favorite wireless controllers," said Laakko. "Whether using Energizer(R) Advanced Lithium or our new Energizer(R) Power & Play gaming charging systems, gamers using Energizer products can rest assured that their fun will last and last."

Striking the guitar frets was quieter across the board (from light to hard button presses) on the new guitar with an average drop from 12 to 6 decibels. As for the drums, you can see from the graph that most of the strikes were quieter, with a strange anomaly occurring in the hardest strikes that actually made those hits louder.

You can hit the link for the full analysis (with graphs!!), but it looks like everyone but the most aggressive drummers will find the new Rock Band instruments quieter. Sorry honey. [Joystiq]

There are prominent examples, for instance: Project Gotham Racing 3, one of the first games for the Xbox 360. There the load times have been very long; those are going to get reduced immensely. Recent games are already optimized; there the gain is relatively small.

New games will see less of a benefit because related game information is written to DVDs in closer proximity. And just a factoid if you didn't know it—titles on the PS3 often double-write information, exploiting the space on Blu-ray discs to compensate for the slow tech. [Golem via GamersGlobe -Thanks Eric!]

Here are a couple of the more jaw-dropping excerpts:

Most of the problems pointed to as the cause of the epidemic of Red Rings of Death showed up way before launch, naturally:

In an Aug. 30, 2005 memo, the team reported overheating graphics chip, cracking heat sinks, cosmetic issues with the hard disk drive and the front of the box, under-performing graphics memory chips from Infineon (now Qimonda), a problem with the DVD drive, and other things.

The test machines were not properly debugged, due to an ill-advised cost-cutting initiative that shaved $2 million from $25 million paid to Cimtek, a test machine maker in Canada. The Microsoft team decided not to pay the consulting fee to Cimtek to build, manage and debug the test machines. Sources familiar with the matter said there were only about 500 test machines at the time of launch, a third of the 1,500 needed.

“There were so many problems, you didn’t know what was wrong,” said one source of the machines. “The [test engineers] didn’t have enough time to get up and running.”

The shortages at launch were in fact largely a product of the Xbox 360's low yields—in Spring 2006, this was the situation:

Microsoft had more than 500,000 defective consoles that sat in warehouses. They were either duds coming out of the factory or they were returned boxes, according to inside sources. The yield was climbing, but far too slowly. The company stood by its statement that returns were within “normal rates for consumer electronics products.”

At that time, the yield rate was still only "an abysmal 50 percent on the first pass. When the bad machines were reworked within the factory, the yield went up to 75 percent –- hardly acceptable." It's gotten better now, but still not amazing. As of the beginning of 2008, it's still only 85 percent—meaning for every 100 Xbox 360s produced, 15 don't work.

The Falcon revision, which used smaller 65nm chips and had a bunch of other tweaks, like more expensive, better quality heatsinks, alleviated some of the problems, as well as made them cheaper to produce—as many had suspected with their introduction. The latest, the Jasper board, takes that a step further, which Takahashi reports is what allowed them to steeply cut console prices last week.

All of this is just a small cut of Takahashi's dense, extremely well-reported feature. If you own an Xbox 360, you owe it to yourself to read. [Venture Beat]

• Xbox 360 Arcade - $199
• Xbox 360 - $299
• Xbox 360 Elite - $399

Still, Elite all the way, baby. [Kotaku]

Currently in testing overseas, the officially licensed cabinet should be available in the coming months. And if it only ditched those controllers for a couple of high performance joysticks, we might just be tempted to score one for home use. [Kotaku]

Immersion forked over $20.75 million to Microsoft to settle the suit and become part of the Microsoft Certified Partner Program. Other terms of the deal were not disclosed, but there's a good chance that money is flowing in both directions.

So not that it matters to your next Halo 3 deathmatch, but Immesion and Microsoft have...once again...settled their legal battle. Hooray! [Kotaku]

Bit-tech was also a bit concerned about the scratch prone brushed aluminum finish and what they considered to be shoddy craftsmanship in spots—but they still regard their overall first impression to be a positive one. No matter how you look at it, the XB01 case is definitely a lot bigger than the 360, the look is a matter of opinion, and it is not completely silent, so it really comes down to whether or not it does a good job of cooling down the console. Bit-tech hopes to have a temperature test up soon. [bit-tech]

On the day Rock Band 2 shimmies onto store shelves, Rock Band 1 will get an update that'll add an "export" option. It'll ask you for a password, which is included with your copy of Rock Band 2. After you punch in the code you'll have to pay up, but Harmonix says it won't be more than five bucks (the money is for rights holders). Then all of your songs, or at least the ones you're allowed to port, will be copied to your hard drive. Harmonix's PR dude John Drake also said that if you buy Rock Band 2 and just rent Rock Band 1, you'll probably be able to copy the songs as long as you pay the fee.

There are some songs you might not be able to move over, but Harmonix hasn't said which ones yet. One thing to consider is that if you copy over most of the songs, while Harmonix didn't dish the exact numbers, you're probably talking a couple gigabytes of your hard drive permanently gone (roughly ~30MB/song x 58 songs = 1.74GB), which might be an issue if you've only got a 20GB model. Still, we're pretty happy about this. [Multiplayer via Kotaku]

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 21, 2008 — A leading gaming and entertainment platform just became a leading platform for change. Microsoft Corp. and Rock the Vote today announced a groundbreaking partnership that will allow Xbox 360 owners to register to vote, participate in presidential polls and voice their opinions to the presidential candidates. It will all happen through Xbox LIVE starting Monday, Aug. 25, the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
“Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters,” said Heather Smith, executive director, Rock the Vote. “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE.”
This is the first time that Rock the Vote has joined forces with an entertainment partner such as Xbox to reach voters under 30. Xbox LIVE is the largest online social network connected to the television, with membership totaling 12 million — if Xbox LIVE were a state, it would rank as the country’s seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes.
“The Xbox LIVE community is active, vocal and passionate,” said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. “We’re thrilled to partner with Rock the Vote to make it easier than ever for youth voters — and our members — to register and be heard.”
Through the Rock the Vote partnership, Xbox LIVE members will be able to register to vote, voice their opinions to the candidates through an exclusive forum and participate in potentially election-predicting polls. They will also be able to download Rock the Vote public service announcements.
Xbox also will have a presence at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, promoting the Rock the Vote partnership and educating delegates about creating a safer entertainment environment on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE using the built-in parental controls known as Family Settings. These industry-leading settings allow parents to limit their children’s access to video games and movies and manage their activity and communications on Xbox LIVE. For more information on Family Settings and other safety-enhancing gaming tools and resources, delegates can stop by the Xbox on-site kiosk or visit http://www.xbox.com/isyourfamilyset.