Gameinformer magazine recently took a survey of videogame failure rates. The Wii came in at about 6% while the Playstation 3 had a fail rate of roughly 10%. The Xbox has always been notorious for the “red ring of death” and so not surprisingly, it was the highest coming in at over 54%. We’re guessing that the survey interviewed a lot of new Xbox owners who have not yet had the pleasure of going through the Xbox replacement process. The new consoles with the Jasper motherboard may have also helped. If the survey had been conducted only on Xbox owners of more than 3 years, we’re pretty sure the fail rates would have been much higher. Despite the high frequency of the RRoD and Microsoft’s poor customer service, fans are not deterred as only about 4% of people actually indicated that they would not be buying another Xbox 360 due to the high failure rate.

[Source: Joystiq]

A recent job posting from Microsoft seems to suggest that they are looking for a seasoned veteran to help develop the next generation of the Xbox.

“The LIVE Engagement Team is looking for a LIVE Community Director to manage its LIVE community strategy and execution across a range of properties, from Xbox LIVE to Windows Mobile. This senior position will play a vital role in the community space as the LIVE Engagement team builds and program’s Microsoft’s next-generation, LIVE-enabled casual and social gaming platform across the Web, the console, mobile and beyond.”

Microsoft is apparently very keen on the idea of integrating their Xbox with the PC and even Windows Mobile. Microsoft is most likely trying to take advantage of the fact that the Windows platform is nearly universal in order to boost the presence of the other two.

[Source: ARStechnica]

Facebook and Twitter may be coming to the Xbox sooner than expected! Now you can get status updates from your friends while playing Halo! Ok we’re kidding about that last part, but if Social networking sites are a part of your life, this promises the convenience of keeping your ass plotted on the sofa instead of walking the 5 feet over to your computer to check on your Facebook. We still don’t have a definite date yet but it is definitely due out some time in the Autumn season. Don’t get your hopes up though as it has been confirmed that this will not be part of the August dashboard update. The applications will be independent of the dashboard.

[Source: Eurogamer]

Microsoft has been under some heat ever since documents revealed that the company was aware of the Xbox 360 design flaw that made game disks susceptible to scratches during play. Microsoft Xbox users often complain about the console’s tendency to put the ring like scratches (picture above) in their games and so far Microsoft has been very elusive on the subject. Microsoft has just recently responded to the allegations by stating that they have put a warning that the console should not be moved during play and that such a move would make any console put scratches in a disk. Microsoft has further stated that they did put a clear warning label that must be removed before play.

[Source: Edge]

Check out this insane xbox mod from console mod guru Benjamin J Heckendorn! I’m not sure about taking this thing on a road trip like I would a DS though since it is so heavy but it would be a very good idea for lan parties! Heck refers to it as a Xbox laptop. The heavy aluminum contained in the casing would almost steer it towards a Xbox Macbook title but hey its his creation he can call it whatever he likes. The unit comes with many non-standard xbox accessories such as a chatpad and a vision cam as well. Hopefully Microsoft catches wind of this and decides that there is definitely a market for an Xbox packaged in this manner!

[Source:Benheck]

If you’ve bought an Xbox 360 lately, you’ve probably bought the latest iteration of hardware to come in the Microsoft console. The team calls it code name Jasper and it features a few notable differences from previous Xbox 360s. Before you get all excited though, you should know that Gears of War will not run at a higher resolution. Jasper mostly aims at fixing some of the reliability issues that have been such a weakness on the console ever since launch. It comes with a new motherboard that is supposed to use less power so the power supply was also reduced to a150 Watt from the 175 Watt. The arcade version also comes with 256 MB of internal memory so you can save games without a hard drive!

Its been 3 years since release and the Xbox 360 has just outsold the original Xbox. The Xbox made its debut in 2001 and ended its four year lifespan with 25 million units sold. The 360 is now poised to beat its sixth generation predecessor by even more following this holiday season. The arcade bundle, at 199, is now cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. The Xbox 360′s strong third party support and popular multiplayer component (Xbox Live) continue to give it a big advantage over the competition. We here at Xboxspies would like to congratulate team at Microsoft for putting together such a successful and fun console, although next time maybe we can have a few less Red Rings?

Five weeks. It has been five weeks since the last time the Sony Playstation 3 sold more than the Microsoft Xbox 360. For the first time ever, the Xbox 360 beat out the Playstation 3 for the entire month of September in Japan. And that trend seems to continue. For the week ending on October 12, date coming from Media Create Co., have shown that the Xbox 360 has once again beat out the Playstation 3. For week of October 6 to October 12, the Xbox 360 sold 7,763 units compared to the PS3′s 5,734. Xbox’s recent success can be attributed to the recent price cut of the Xbox 360. Although the Xbox 360 is doing well against the Playstation 3, both fail in comparison in sales to the Nintendo Wii, which continues to sell strong worldwide.

- Geoff

[Source: GameDaily]

Portal was an absolutely revolutionary game. The concept was so simple and yet provided such dynamic game play. The player assumes an unidentified test subject who is put through a series of tests by a mysterious voice over the intercom. The promise of a cake at the end of the challenge is the primary motivating force. The Gameplay revolves around the use of a portal gun which can project 2 way portals onto the surfaces of walls. Gravity is conserved when traveling through the portals so the players will must manipulate that to get through the many obstacles. It is a puzzle game in the truest sense of the word. Valve has announced that the Portal experience will be coming to Xbox Live on October 22nd 2008. The new version exclusive to XBL will feature the same original game and 14 new maps exclusive to the Xbox system.

The Christmas Season is here and 2008 promises to be an exciting year for gaming! As gamers, we spend our entire year waiting for this chance to finally try the big titles. The games that developers have hyped for over 2 years are finally being released weekly within the span of about 2 short months. It is totaly bliss for gamers and a total drain on our wallets. With each game costing about 60 dollars, and the average gamer between highschool and his mid 20′s, we’re not the most financially blessed people. For all those new to the gaming scene, I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 videogames to watch in 2008. The following games are Xbox games so don’t complain if you don’t see Resistance on it.

• 5- Mirror’s Edge
• 4- Dead Space
• 3- Prince of Persia
• 2- Fable II
• 1- Gears of War 2

Now this is just a list of anticipated games based on personal preference. But with over 10 years of gaming experience, I doubt anyone can have anything bad to say about the following titles. Go ahead, I dare you…