These are terrible. One isn't even of the building, but of the street in front of it! Clearly, after visiting Microsoft's Japanese Xbox HQ and providing you with relevant previews, we decided to justify our intolerable touristy-ness by sharing our on-the-spot snaps. It's like you were there and only remembered five things!

Are you on the fence about the upcoming changes to the Xbox 360 dashboard? Apprehensive about the unceremonious subtraction of your beloved blades? Perhaps it would be wise to check out an interactive demo of the New Xbox Experience (or, as the hip kids are calling it, the NXE) that was recently added to Xbox.com. You can get a good idea of what the new layout will look like -- though you'll have to wait until the NXE lands on your 360 before trying your hand at breathing life into your cartoonish, digital representation.

Intel is rumored to be heavily courting Microsoft for inclusion of its high-performance GPU Larrabee in the next-generation Xbox, according to The Inquirer. Its source states that Intel is willing to make a lot of major concessions, the logic being that inclusion in the console would compel game makers to develop for the chipset, thus increasing interest in the consumer PC market and making a dent in the GPU market dominated by ATI and Nvidia. It's certainly not a far-fetched scheme; we'd be surprised if Intel didn't at least make a pitch to Microsoft, regardless of the actual terms.

The Xbox 360 currently uses a PowerPC-based CPU from IBM and a GPU designed by ATI. Should this rumor prove true, our first reaction is "cool" and our second is to wonder about backwards compatibility, which became an issue given that the original Xbox's GPU was based on a different, Nvidia-based architecture in comparison to its successor.

[Via Tweaktown; Thanks, Tigerj]

After having "warned [their] 3 boys about their behavior while playing the Xbox," a rather vengeful father had decided to create folk art with the console, according to the mother's CNN iReport. In the comment section, the mother said the kids do not "totally hate dad ... There was a problem, and the problem was addressed properly."

Not to worry for the kids, however, as a replacement Xbox can be found on eBay for well under $40. In fact, the Xbox shown above can be found on the online auction site as well, with 50% of proceeds reportedly going to the local school system and 50% towards the children's college fund. So, now that we know it can be nailed ... will it blend?

[Via X3F]

We initially dismissed Zoink and SnapDragon Games' KORE when it popped back into the news a few months ago -- after all, how good could a game that was initially designed for the original Xbox, cancelled, then revived for the Wii possibly be? Our hopes for the title were admittedly low -- however, a pair of videos for the redesigned platformer, including the trailer above and an 11-minute gameplay montage (embedded after the break), recently made their way onto GameTrailers ... and into our hearts.

Okay, we're still not entirely sold on KORE quite yet, but the robo-platforming and Psychonauts-esque visuals are more than enough to pique our collective interest. We'll be keeping an eye on the resuscitated title as its ambitious developers continue revamping it -- we just hope they kan limit the inkorrekt usage of the letter K. It upsets the English majors among us.

You're in the Movies was announced by Shane Kim and Don Mattrick at the Microsoft press conference today. The game will come with an Xbox Live Vision camera, and will place animations and backgrounds around actual video recorded from the camera.

Sounds silly to us, but you never know -- maybe some aspiring filmmaker out there will find their medium with a game that can make it look like you're fleeing Godzilla.

Want to be the first kid on the block to own the brand new Xbox 360 60GB model? Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the console at the $349 price tag, with a release date of August 4.

Fun fact: the Xbox 360 hardware issues did not affect customers' overall view of the console. Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Group, told a group of reporters, "The amazing part of that whole situation is that when we look at brand preference, customer satisfaction, willingness to recommend, none of that data has moved through that whole process" (via VentureBeat).

In case you think you misread that, Bach continues. "It speaks to the fact that they love their games and Xbox Live. Does it frustrate them? Yes. On the other hand, they know we're taking care of them," he said. Bach, who was not part of yesterday's executive reshuffle, covered quite a few topics (and managed to dodge most of them): the next Xbox console, Japan failures, a hinted Wii remote, "Wii 360" and the loss of Bizarre Creations.

Ever since the passing of controversial anti-Ninja legislation, importing Japan's deadliest natural resource into the States is a near-impossible process. Luckily, the Federal Trade Commission has recognized that Ninja Gaiden II is not an actual ninja, but instead, a circular platter of polycarbonate encapsulated in a decorated box and an irritating plastic sheath. They also noted that the ninja on the cover is an illustrated ninja, who poses little to no risk of flipping out and killing you in your sleep.

Thus, Ninja Gaiden II was cleared to launch in North America just in time for its June 3 release date -- though it took Team Ninja much longer to convince the FTC that the game's demo was not some sort of digital assassin, sent to kill the internets. Luckily, that bit of confusion was resolved today, and the Ninja Gaiden II demo is now available on Xbox Live. Conveniently enough, we can think of no better way of venting our anger over the demo's North American delay than to dismember some minions with frightening bladed weaponry.

Those of you who enjoy soccer of the North American variety will begin to see jerseys emblazoned with a very familiar logo (that of the Xbox Live service) when a brand spankin' new Major League Soccer team, the Seattle Sounders FC, makes its debut in the 2009 season. The team (not to be confused with other Sounders franchises in the NASL and USL) recently agreed to a 5-year, $20 million sponsorship from Microsoft and its hot-under-the-hood home console.

In addition to fancy new jerseys, the young team's home field will be tiled "The Xbox Pitch at Qwest Field", and the 360 will reportedly be recognized as the "official and exclusive video game console of Major League Soccer." We pray Sony doesn't respond by sponsoring a competing MLS team -- to combine the zealous fanaticism associated with gaming consoles and soccer teams may incite a fanboy war that would tear our continent asunder.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

We admit that the Wii is capable of many things, arm cramps and printing money chief among them, though even we had not counted resurrection among its laundry list of features. Yet that appears to be the case, at least with regards to formerly defunct original Xbox platformer The Kore Gang (shown above), with the title having been given new life as an upcoming release from Zoink Games and SnapDragon Games for the Wii.

Originally developed by Unique Development Studios, a Swedish outfit that closed its doors in 2004, the game now carries the shorter, and all-capital name KORE. As a title that originally began life on Microsoft's freshman console, thankfully the name is not all that's being revised. Publisher Zoink notes that much work has gone into the game's design and story, which tells of a trio of characters stuffed into a mechanical suit as they protect the center of the earth from bad guys, leaving us hoping that at least one of them is Brendan Fraser.

Microsoft has announced that Xbox 360 has become "the first current-generation gaming console" to break the 10 million threshold for units sold in the US. According to NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier (via CNET), the Wii stands at 8.8 million and the PlayStation 3 at 4.1 million units sold.

Much as we did yesterday with Nintendo's announcement of having sold 6 million Wiis in Japan, let's break this number down. Assume the Xbox 360 hit 10 million as of midnight May 14, or 903 days since its November 22, 2005 launch.

• At a population of 301.4million, that's approximately 3.32% of all people in the US.
• Using the 903 metric, the Xbox 360 has therefore sold 11,074 per day, 461 per hour and 7.7 units per minute.

Microsoft also announced 12 million global members of Xbox Live and 19 million Xbox 360 units sold worldwide, which they claim is "more than any other current-generation console." Update: GameDaily contacted Microsoft to remind them that the Wii is currently sitting at 25 million worldwide, to which they said, "we apologize for any confusion. Xbox 360 has the largest global install base of any current gen, high definition gaming console" (emphasis added).

Did you know that every foul obscenity, racial slur, and homophobic epithet collects in the corners of Xbox Live, much akin to the mood slime in "Ghostbusters II"? It can cause some serious latency issues -- though unfortunately, it cannot be cleared away by a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne. It takes hours of tedious chiseling and scraping to clear this hate plaque from Microsoft's servers, during which time Xbox Live is made unavailable for CoD4 grinding and piñata swapping.

Unfortunately for those 360 owners with online gaming on the docket for this coming Monday morning, Xbox Live will be down for said maintenance for eight hours. Before you get your hopes up, Gamerscore Blog assured everyone that this is not the fabled spring update, just some routine sprucing. We know the thought of division from the gaming hivemind is unbearable, but we trust you can go without from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. PST (that's 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST, or "Too Legit 2 Quit" to "Pumps in a Bump" in Standard Hammer Time.)

Want an Xbox 360 Wireless Helmet ala Nintendo ON (but totally radder)? Perhaps a Vintage Edition Xbox 360 console, shaped like the original Xbox but with wood-trim, just like Grandpa's Xbox used to have? Or perhaps the battery-powered Recon Edition is more to your liking? Maybe, just maybe, the whole problem with these video game systems is the "video" part and, if so, try out Xbox Live The Board Game. All the fun of Xbox Live, only this time the 12-year-old homophobic racists are right in the same room as you are!

Of course these are all hoaxes. We imagine Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer staying up late last night, putting the finishing touches on the Photoshops while debating on whether or not to let in on the joke. Alas, they didn't quite have what it takes to follow the hoaxes to their logical conclusion: that being, of course, millions of fanboys hurriedly scribbling "Major Nelson plushie" off their holiday wishlists and writing in, in ALL CAPS mind you, WIRELESS XBOX HELMET. Nope, if you try to "Learn more" they blow the whole thing, revealing the helmet and everything else to be a farce (an April Fools' faux pas to be sure) and offering a conciliatory olive branch to spurned (and gullible) nerds everywhere in the form of some free gamerpics. We'll just write-in the plushie again, thanks.

[Thanks, riggs]

[Update: Our secret santas at X3F just captured the above video off Xbox Live and shared it with us. Thanks, guys!]

If there's one thing we appreciate about a home console, it's prolificacy -- and for quite some time now, the PS2 has claimed top honors in that respect. Sony's last-gen system currently holds the console record for having the most games (with more than 1600 titles), which we never expected to be toppled in this day and age, where console generations seem to pass more and more like smoke through a keyhole as technology continues to advance.

However, according to Chris Lewis, the Xbox Vice Prez for Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Europe, the 360 might yet pass the PS2 in its lifetime, as the system, he claims, will play host to over 1,000 games by this summer. While this news may come as a boon to MSoft fanboys, keep in mind that this doesn't mean there will be 1,000 good games for the system -- lest we forget, for every Bioshock that makes its way to store shelves, there will be an unavoidable handful of Bomberman: Act Zeroes.