Recently Microsoft announced a new partnership with the non-profit organization Companions in Courage, an organization dedicated to supporting families with children who are dealing with life-threatening medical conditions. As partners, Microsoft will be supplying hundreds of single Xbox 360 kiosks to children’s hospitals across the nation.

Some have already been installed at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, the Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center of Seattle and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, California. The kiosks won’t just feature games, but TV shows and movies as well, plus they’ll be connected to each other with a special version of the Xbox LIVE network. That will allow kids from one hospital to interact and play games with kids from another. If you like, you can be a part of the project too. Help bring more 360 kiosks to other hospitals by visiting the Companions in Courage website at http://cic16.org and making a donation. It’s a great way to help these kids out.

While everyone’s waiting for X-Box’s new Wii controller, another wireless controller is coming our way for the Xbox 360. The only difference is that you’ll be using your feet, not your hands. Qmotions will be developing a version of their skateboard controller for Microsoft’s game console.

The company already makes controllers for various sports games and plans to release it’s “Big Air” board for the Xbox in the second half of 2008, with more Microsoft-endorsed products to follow. I’m guessing one of those products will have the name Tont Hawk in it. Call it a wild guess.

Look who’s getting into the Wii action. Microsoft’s been working on a Wiimote type controller and it’s due to come out later this year. They actually began development way back in Summer ‘07. But the process has had it’s share of problems. According to MTV news and their exclusive source, this is what it looks like.

The familiar looking Wiimote has a speaker, microphone, four LED lights, A/B/X/Y face buttons, an analog stick and an underside trigger. The Nintendo Wiimote doesn’t have a Microphone and has a D-pad instead of an analog stick. Rare is the company working on it and they reportedly are trying to come up with a “unified interface and look for the controller.” The problems are between marketers and designers. The marketers basically want a replica of Nintendo’s Wiimote so game developers will want to port Wii games onto the 360. The designers want it more feature-rich and they have an interesting description “Halo, Gears and Forza in waggle form.”

Shortly after the fall of the HD DVD format Microsoft officially announced that they were ending production of the HD DVD player for the Xbox 360 and we, along with a number of others, figured they would be jumping on board with Blu-ray in short order.

According to Microsoft exec Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for the Xbox 360, the company appears to have no plans to move in the direction of a Blu-ray player, or any high-def player for that matter, for their game console. “Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience,” Greenberg said. He followed up that comment with “We’re the only console offering digital distribution of entertainment content,” which leads us to believe that Microsoft may have taken this opportunity to rid the console of physical disc media all together.

HG Controllers want you to have an edge in your gaming. They’re selling custom modded Xbox 360 controllers that feature duplicate buttons on the underside. The extra buttons can be pressed by the same fingers that hold the controller. That should give you at least a split second advantage over your opponents who are still using a regular Xbox 360 controller. Timing is everything, after all.

The buttons can come in a variety of combinations that will compliment different games better. If you’re a Halo 3 fan, you can get the 4-Button modded controller for $89.99. Or you can just settle for a 2-Button version at only$69.99.

Microsoft has officially given the Xbox 360 HD DVD player a price slashing by $50. This brings the player down to $129 from the $179 price tag that it got last July.

The player still comes with the 5 free HD DVD movie offer that it had before along with a copy of King Kong, but it we also feel it comes with the distinct stigma of a dying technology being run out by Blu-ray. We wouldn’t be surprised to see prices lower than even $129 once it hits some of the major retailers.

The Rock Band Stage Kit will add more authenticity to your dreams of becoming a real life rock star. The peripheral kit was spotted on GameStop’s website, retailing for $99.99. Not many other details are known, but it will include an interactive light and smoke show.

If rocking on a fake plastic guitar still manages to satisfy your rock and roll dreams, just imagine how fancy smoke and lights will raise you to the next level of your somewhat less then Rock-God performances.

The marketing research firm NPD has turned in their analysis of what the top video game titles and consoles were last month and the news is very good for the industry as a whole. Leading the top in sales of new software was Activision’s “Call of Duty 4″ for the Microsoft Xbox 360 which sold an impressive 1.57 million copies. Nintendo’s “Super Mario Galaxy” came in second place and if you combine the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sales for “Assassin’s Creed” it would actually take the silver medal. Not coincidentally Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed” has emerged as the best-selling new IP for games in recent years.

Nintendo’s handheld DS gaming device sold an amazing 1.53 million units in November which was enough to give it the top of the chart for hardware sales. In second place was Nintendo’s Wii gaming console with 981,000 Wiis sold followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in third spot with 770,000 units finding homes. Sony moved 577,000 PlayStation Portable to give it fourth place and the price drop in the PS3 convinced 466,000 consumers to go out and buy one of the consoles last month.

Time magazine has released its list of the top ten videogames of the year. Can you take a guess at what made their number one spot? If you guessed “Halo 3″ you don’t win a prize. “Like a pebble that has been rounded over the centuries by the gentle splashing of the ocean waves, ‘Halo 3′ has become the perfect hardcore first-person combat simulator,” said Time in their idol worship of the Xbox 360 killer app. “By dint of painstaking labor on the part of its developer, Bungie, it has been refined over three installments to the point where it delivers only pure, unadulterated gaming bliss.” Who knew that the editors at Time were down with playing some Master Chief deathmatches?

Of the titles that made Time’s best of 2007 list six are exclusive to one videogame system, of which three are for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and one each for Sony’s PlayStation 2, Nintendo’s DS and Wii console systems. Why didn’t at least one PlayStation 3 exclusive title make it on Time’s list? And no “Guitar Hero III” (or is that game now redundant that “Rock Band” is out and lets you play drums as well as guitar?)

We all want a single unit that has every form of entertainment in one box. SE2 Labs has an entertainment super-machine that tries to oblige, while looking like a mini-computer server. Design-wise, it’s looks are simply amazing. It’s called the ITC One and it boasts an Xbox 360, HD personal video recorder, surround-sound processor, ICEpower High End D-Class Amplifiers, 4.3-inch touchscreen, iPod dock, and remote control system all in a single unit.

The price for having so many goodies in one box? A whooping $19,900. Most people would prefer to get a rocking home theater system at that price. Or even buy a car. But if you like it’s design and the fact that it’s so compact, go for it.

Microsoft today dropped the rest of the details on its upcoming Xbox 360 2007 Fall Dashboard Update. This includes the previously covered Xbox Originals download service. You can expect this update to populate your video game console sometime starting Dec. 4.

The Xbox 360 2007 Fall Dashboard Update is definitely a major overhaul with lots of new features. Besides the ability to download and play Xbox Originals you also get access to reduced prices on select Xbox Live Arcade titles. There will also be a new direct feed into the dashboard which gives you more updated information on new Xbox offerings. You’ll also be able to add more information into your bio for friends to view as well as being able to see the Friends Lists of other Xbox Live members.

Today marks the arrival of BioWare’s next role-playing game. The creators of “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and “Jade Empire” return with a new science fiction IP they call “Mass Effect” made exclusively for the Microsoft Xbox 360.

The game lets you assume the role of a human military officer named Samuel Shepard. Set in the distant future when humans have colonized the galaxy and interact with alien races, Shepard is given orders to investigate a discovery on a far-off planet that could jeopardize the lives of hundreds of billions. By interacting with non-player characters, using the squad-based combat system and exploring alien worlds in search of clues you will uncover the cosmic danger that lies in store for the galaxy and hopefully find a means to prevent disaster.

Black Friday is fast approaching and although the Nintendo Wii has held strong as the leader in U.S. game console sales for the past year it may not be the case for long. When we first heard Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime talk about Wii console production shortages we suspected it was part of a marketing plan to create a greater demand for the consoles. After all, creating a sense of urgency is one of the most common sales tactics around.

Now that we are into Thanksgiving week and one of the biggest retail shopping days of the year is within site, where are all the Wii’s at? I’m starting to think that this is not part of a marketing scheme and that Nintendo really doesn’t have enough, although it is still surprising to me. The company has had a clear lead in console sales all year long and have been under demand the whole time. We’ve been reporting about the lack of availability as far back as January and Nintendo has had almost a year to catch up.

Can you believe Xbox Live, the online arm of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console, turns five tomorrow? Neither can we. That being said, this is a shining example of an area where Microsoft held on to become a dominant force in a vertical category. To celebrate this crowning moment several announcements were made which should make things even more interesting.

For starters, Microsoft is giving away for free between 12:01 a.m. PST on Nov. 15 and 11:59 p.m. PST on Nov. 16 an Xbox Live Arcade game for download. Of even bigger interest to gamers, particularly fans of the original Xbox, is word of a free system update which will offer, among other enhancements, the ability to purchase and download original Xbox games. These Xbox Originals look to initially include Halo,” “Psychonauts,” “Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge” and “Fable,” among others.

The first thing you’ll notice is that these controllers look like some sort of cartoon thermometers or maybe some weird electronic Candyland Game accessory. These big buttoned Xbox 360 controllers are strange to say the least. They come bundled with the new Scene It! game.

The big buttons are colored the same as the standard four buttons from the Xbox 360 controllers, just vertically aligned below the big button. The large button is for that game show moment when you slam the button and submit the right answer, cuing loud music and confetti raining down on you. It also has the Xbox gem and a “Start” and “Back” button on each controller. You get all 4 controllers with the $60 game.