image © Ars Technica

The 360 might be my preferred gaming rig, and there’s not much that I don’t like about it, but the ridiculously overpriced wireless adapter has always stuck in my craw. Considering that the Wii and the PS3 are both in the 360′s price range, and that they both feature built-in wireless networking, it seems more than a little silly that Microsoft is planning on charging $80 for outdated tech that should have been included in the console in the first place.

(That being said, I’m probably going to pick one up as soon as it’s available, because I am a sausage.)

Tracks available on Xbox 360 (Sept. 8th) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (Sept. 10th):

• Freezepop – “Get Ready 2 Rokk” *
• Freezepop – “Less Talk More Rokk” *
• Freezepop – “Science Genius Girl” *
• Jonathan Coulton – “Re: Your Brains” *
• MC Frontalot – “Origin of Species” *
• Paul & Storm – “Opening Band” *
• 3 Doors Down – “Kryptonite”
• AFI – “Miss Murder”
• Audioslave – “Gasoline”
• Jackson 5 – “ABC”

image © Bryan Stratton

Hey guys, have you heard? Xbox 360s die, horribly, almost without fail. In the wake of some devastatingly terrible survey results—54% failure rate terrible—a third-party warranty company is saying that RRoD troubles are on the wane.

image © Gizmodo, I think

• Avenged Sevenfold – “Bat Country”
• The Jam – “A Town Called Malice”
• The Jam – “Going Underground”
• Oasis – “Supersonic” (Live)
• Rage Against the Machine – “Guerilla Radio”
• Talking Heads – “And She Was”
• Talking Heads – “Crosseyed & Painless”
• Talking Heads – “Girlfriend is Better”
• Talking Heads – “Once in a Lifetime”
• Talking Heads – “Take Me to the River”

image © Bryan Stratton

image © Engadget

This, of course, is in response to the recently-released PS3 Slim, the skinny, $300 version of Sony’s Blu-Ray player. Rumor has it that it also plays games. I’m afraid Sony has an uphill climb ahead of them if they truly want to compete with the 360, but at least they’ve now got a decent ad campaign, instead of something designed to confuse and horrify you.

image © Engadget

The Nintendo Wii has remained at $249 since its launch, and as of April of this year, Nintendo was still denying that any price cuts were imminent. But with the X360 Pro dropping to the Wii’s price point and the full-featured PS3 Slim and X360 SKUs moving into the Wii’s neighborhood, it’s hard to believe that we won’t see a $50 price cut before the holiday season begins in earnest.

So there you go, kids. If you set your mind to it, you can accomplish anything that you want in life—provided that you’re phenomenally wealthy, in peak physical condition and one of the smartest people on the planet.

image © GameSpot

Tracks available on Xbox 360 (Aug. 25) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (Aug. 27):

• Billy Idol – “Mony Mony”
• Billy Idol – “Rebel Yell”
• Fleetwood Mac – “Don’t Stop”
• Fleetwood Mac – “World Turning”
• Jet – “She’s a Genius”
• Tom Petty – “I Won’t Back Down”
• Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down a Dream”

image © Bryan Stratton

According to a new reader survey by Game Informer, the Xbox 360 suffers from a whopping 54.2% failure rate. That’s an insanely high figure, but I can’t say it seems that inaccurate. And you know what? People don’t care.

Wow. I knew that a lot of gamers had suffered from the 360′s infamous Red Ring of Death (including me and some of my friends), but I wouldn’t have guessed that every other 360 has failed during its relatively short time on the market. Of course, there’s no explanation of the methodology used, so maybe it’s not as bad as all that, especially considering that extremely frustrated customers tend to participate more heavily in voluntary surveys. But still, even if the true figure is a quarter of that, the 360′s failure rate must rank among the highest ever in the consumer electronics world.

image © Gizmodo

The more interesting part of the story for me is not that Microsoft’s manufacturing process leaves so much to be desired, though. It’s that only 3.8% of gamers say that getting a RROD will keep them from buying another 360. Some of that has to be chalked up to Microsoft’s hassle-free repair and replacement program, which I’ve had to use myself and have nothing but good things to say about it (except that it was necessary in the first place, of course). But the extraordinary rate of consumers willing to come back for more of the same is a testament to the experience that the 360 provides.

My girlfriend is not a gamer, but we spend about 5-10 hours a week on the 360 streaming movies and TV from Netflix (which the 360 now has an exclusive deal with). If we have a Rock Band party, that’s another 5-10 hours spent using the magic white box. By contrast, my Wii has been blinking its creepy blue “you have a message” light at me for weeks now, and I haven’t even bothered to turn it on just for the sake of getting rid of the annoyance. And my PS3? Well, I’ve got a small library of Blu-Ray discs and one PS3 game (Grand Theft Auto IV, which, in retrospect, I wish I’d bought for the 360).

The Wii might be bringing in casual gamers, but the 360′s media center capabilities make it attractive even to non-gamers. And until Sony gets its act together, there’s no competition for the more hardcore, traditional gamer dollar. Almost every game that comes out on the PS3 is also available for the 360, and in my experience, the 360 version always runs as well (if not better) than the PS3 version.

It’s kind of funny: when Microsoft announced the original Xbox, my initial response was that I couldn’t see myself equating “Microsoft” with “fun.” But now that the 360 has established dominance in the console gaming world, I can’t imagine my living room without it.