Microsoft promises to keep Xbox Live up through the holidays

It looks like Microsoft doesn't want a repeat of last year's post-holiday Xbox Live outages, when the service was basically unusable for two weeks -- according to 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg, MS is "well prepared for the type of growth we expect this holiday," and that more Live staffers than ever before will be on hand to fix things if things do go bonkers. From what we've heard Live is more robust than ever now that the NXE and the associated backend changes have been rolled out, so we're hoping things go well -- but we wouldn't necessarily say no to another free Arcade game.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Avatars vs. Miis vs. Home people ... FIGHT!

In the battle of video game customizable character thingymabobs, there can be only one winner. Now, with Sony's release of Home and its unique inhabitants, we have a battle between the big three and only one victor can be crowned.

Gamesradar set up a battle between Xbox 360's Avatars versus the Nintendo's Miis and the Playstation 3's Home characters in a console avatar showdown by comparing each console's rendition of various people's likenesses. And after comparing to see which console is best at remaking said person, a victor is chosen. It's definitely a judgment based war, so I'll go ahead and award my console likeness creating winner to be the 360's Avatars. Not because I'm Xbox 360 fanboy, but because ... well, actually, that's exactly why.

Video: Super Xbox Fanboy's dungeon of terror

Posted Dec 11th 2008 3:15PM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: Fan stuff

Let's get one thing straight. We are Xbox 360 Fanboys, but we're not, you know, fanboys. We're all for extravagant gaming setups. Hell, we helped create one. But this ... this defies description, and frankly we're not sure how we missed it (it's been up for two years, apparently).

In the video above you will see the Xbox 360 room of an extremely dedicated man. You might be with him while he's showing off the 360-themed paintjob. You might be willing to follow him along when he shows off the built-in mini fridge. You'll probably be losing him around the time you see the furniture covered in neon green fur. But for us, the abject terror set in when he turned on the green LED lights, giving the whole room an eerie, otherworldly glow.

It was then that we realized this is no game room. This is a dungeon. This is where someone stores you while he prepares to make a suit out of your skin.

[Via poeTV]

Jasper 360s: Secret to succesful identification

I spotted an informative writeup over at AnandTech regarding various Xbox 360 Jasper identification strategies. What's a Jasper? Well, Jasper is the codename for the latest Xbox 360 models to roll off production and house tiny 65nm CPU and GPUs. The smallest, coolest, least power demanding, most stable and generally "best" Xbox 360 version to be manufactured.

Anyhoo, if you're in the market for a 360, we highly recommend you try to secure a Jasper 360 using a few of AnandTech's Jasper identification strategies. They've detailed tips including console lot number matching, looking up the console wattage and - most accurate of all - looking at the power connector. Remember, Jaspers are teh hawtness. You want Jaspers.