There's good and possibly bad news around the Xbox 360 this week. Reports suggest that some Xbox Live accounts have been cracked and used to run up charges for vast amounts of Microsoft Points. Since points are non-transferrable, it's not clear how this would profit someone except perhaps to get "free" games, load 'em on a machine that becomes a partial owner (remember, you don't license your content for offline use - your Xbox does!), delete the stolen gamertag and then sell it for more than retail. Microsoft denies they have major security problems, but the company is apparently taking this seriously now - so if you've had this problem you might as well report it. On the sunnier side, Devil May Cry 4 will be coming to the 360 and Ace Combat 6 and Star Wars Battlefront III might prove to be exclusives. (Well, for awhile - Microsoft exclusives tend to be three months or so if they're not homegrown.) And it seems the rumors of a black Xbox 360 that's HDMI-capable and sports a 120GB hard drive are true; those in the know say it will be $480, just beneath the PS3 price ceiling. The hard drive alone will run $200 by itself.
Other good news includes some new Marketplace content:
Other good news includes some new Marketplace content:
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ($10), plus theme ($1.88) and picture pack ($1.25)
- New Sonic the Hedgehog consecutive boss battle modes playable as Sonic, Shadow or Silver ($1.88 apiece)
- Major League Baseball 2K7 picture packs ($0.75 and $1.25) and themes ($1.88 each)
- Virtua Tennis 3 demo
