CNBC has been having a field day with the Red Ring of ... um, they call it "Doom." Anyway, they have an article and a couple segments on the Red Ring of Death today. The catalyst for the stories is the recent class-action lawsuit filed against Microsoft and Bungie over allegedly faulty Halo 3 discs. CNBC confusingly tries to link the disc and RRoD issues together, but fails miserably. We're pretty sure games don't directly cause hardware failures, they just happen to be in the drive at the time.

In an attempt to show that despite the RRoD issue and the lawsuit, everything else is all good, Microsoft told CNBC they sold over 310,000 Xbox 360 consoles during the week of Nov. 18th. The best part? Not only does the reporter herself say at one point she's gotten the RRoD, but while they're at one person's house he gets it too. As this blogger joined the Red Ring of Death club last night, that brings the current Joystiq Xbox 360 failure rate to around 90%. Happy Holidays!

It turns out Vince Young might not have been the first choice for the Madden 2008 cover. According to CNBC Sports Business reporter Darren Rovell, multiple industry sources have told him that Electronic Arts asked San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson of his interest and presented him an offer. Tomlinson turned it down.

The reason purportedly has nothing to do with the oft-cited "Madden curse," but that Tomlinson was not happy with EA's financial offer. Electronic Arts, according to Rovell, understands their cover to be what he calls the "Wheaties box endorsement," which means that EA will offer the cover athlete less than his market value. Tomlinson opted against it.

Young, afraid of no curse, is now the cover athlete. But as Rovell justly observes, Madden titles sell well regardless of who graces the cover.

CNBC, not a network typically associated with two-hour documentaries on video games, will be airing a two-hour documentary on video games Wednesday, November 15th, "just two days before the scheduled release of Sony's highly anticipated PlayStation 3" -- and four days before the scheduled release of Nintendo's highly anticipated Wii (there, we said it for you). So, what does the Consumer News and Business Channel have to say about video games in Game On! The Unauthorized History of Video Games?

We're expecting the usual history lesson (Tennis for Two, Spacewar, Yo! Noid ... the classics) combined with lots of big numbers, regaling viewers with tall tales of how video games outsell movies (not really true ... box office only, folks). They do promise that "the program also includes riveting stories about the corporate power struggles that won (and lost) billions and how a single blunder helped destroy Atari's $2 billion-a-year-empire." So, maybe you'll learn something or, more importantly, maybe someone who doesn't know anything about video games (beyond MSFT and SNE) may catch the show on Wednesday, November 15th at 9 PM and 12 AM ET -- or even the rebroadcast on Sunday, November 19th at 9PM and 12AM ET -- and reconsider video games. They do outsell movies, y'know.