Each time a new Halo game launches sales records are set. In fact, the last time a Halo game launched the title went on to make more money than many of the year’s biggest movies. I still can’t believe that they pulled the plug on the Halo feature film… dumb asses.

GameStop announced that it would be hosting midnight launch events at many of its locations around the country. The festivities will kick off at most locations at 10pm on Monday March 2 and will include Halo 3 tournaments, Warthog races, character dress up contests and trivia challenges.

Well, this makes it almost official. A new red Xbox 360 Elite is coming. This news came via the usual route. Sort of: First it began as a rumor, then a retailer inventory listing and then an innocent mention in a New Zealand press release.

An MS New Zealand promotion for the upcoming release of Halo Wars, buy a 360, get a free copy of the game, explicitly excluded “the Red Xbox 360 Elite console which is exclusive to EB games.” Yeah, the one that hasn’t been officially announced. Like my other question of the evening concerning color, I ask again: Would you get a new red Xbox 360? Or no?

If you’re in the market for a new monitor we’ve come across one you just might want to take a look at. Don’t let all the expensive-looking features scare you away just yet; Dell is listing this one at a mere $379.

The Dell SP2309W is a 23-inch Full-HD widescreen display with a 2048×1152 resolution and up to 80,000:1 contrast ratio. This resolution allows you to bring up two full-sized web pages side by side like you might do with dual monitors, but enough room on just this one (provided your vision is good).

Storage capacities are growing for both desktop and portable computers. Notebooks still can’t match the storage capacity available in many desktop computers, but the gap is closing. Hitachi announced its latest notebook HDD today that offers lots of storage and green features built-in.

The hard drive is called the Travelstar 5K500.B and has 500GB of storage space wile consuming only 1.4W during read/write operations. The drives are also halogen free making them more environmentally friendly.

September games sales actually showed the first decline since March of 2006 according to the NPD Group, however things are still not looking too tough for the gaming industry. September of 2007 saw a huge hike in sales due to the release of Halo 3 which is contrasted by slightly lower sales this last September of 2008.

The drop is sales was not the only change of events for September, either. Due to the price cut of the Xbox 360 models, Microsoft saw a significantly noticeable boost in sales for its console from 195k units sold in August, to 347k units sold in September of this year, bringing it ahead of Sony’s PS3. Microsoft dropped the price to $50 less than the Wii and half of what the PS3 costs, making it the least expensive current-generation game console on the market.

Microsoft is dropping some limited edition green and red Xbox 360 controllers at the end of September, priced at $64 each. The red one comes with black accents and even comes with a bundled Play & Charge with red battery pack.

If red and green seem like odd color choices, I agree. Red and green says Christmas to me. I guess they would be an ideal pair for playing a Christmas Eve game of Halo with some holly adorning your controllers and a bunch of new games under the tree.

Let’s say you’re in love with Halo, but always on the go. There’s gotta be some way to get your game on. If only you had a convenient Xbox laptop. Ben Heck is probably to busy to make you one, but you may be in luck. For $550, a shop in Kansas called Portable Gaming Solutions says that they will convert your 360 into a suitcase-sized 15-inch laptop with keyboard and speakers.

It might be taking a chance sending your Xbox to him, but hey we all have to start somewhere. The web site has some images and videos of the mod, so it’s probably cool. We hope. Would anyone take the chance and send their console? I don’t know, but I wish him luck. It may not be the most stylish mod, but I guess it gets the job done. Check out the video below.

The Wii has changed the face of gaming with it’s interactive motion controls. So much so, that every other console has begun work on their own version. Just as the Wii has changed gaming, gamers are constantly changing the Wii console itself, giving it all kinds of personalities. Here’s a look at some of our favorites.

According to a report in the NYT, Grand Theft Auto IV reached sales of over $500 million in its first seven days on the market. Take Two Interactive said the game sold approximately 6 million copies worldwide since its launch last Tuesday.

The numbers significantly exceeded expectations of many analysts who expected to see around 5 million copies sold in the first two weeks. Take Two also stated that 3.6 million of those copies were sold the first day of the launch globally for around $310 million in sales. This number even exceeds the numbers we saw for the Halo 3 launch for both first day and first week sales.

Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale worldwide today and many retailers such as Best Buy and GameStop opened their doors at midnight last night to meet fans across the country who created long lines to be one of the first to get their hands on a copy and spend the rest of the night playing. The GTA 4 launch from Take Two is expected to see sales that will rival that of last year’s Halo 3 release, with numbers nearing $400 million for around 6 million copies sold around the world.

The Grand Theft Auto 4 game is available for both the Sony Playstation 3 and the XBox 360 which greatly broadens the audience. Some speculate that the launch delay from last October also allowed more people to have time to buy the latest generation of game console and built more anticipation for the launch. Take Two says the delay was due to technical hurdles that needed to be overcome.

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.”

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.

As if Nintendo hasn’t sold enough DS’s in quite enough colors it looks like another one is on the way, this time sporting Cobalt Blue/Black. We thought the bundled colors were pretty nice and that Pikachu model was pretty neat but we are definitely impressed with this new Blue color. Circuit City has this new color up on their site priced at the usual $130 but not available for order quite yet. You can ask them to let you know when it’s ready however, and help Nintendo pull just a little bit further ahead.

What do you get when you decapitate Master Chief and turn his head into a vacuum? No, not another questionable Highlander sequel that sucks. What you get is this Samsung vacuum that is obviously inspired by Halo.

Samsung’s new bagless vacuum cleaner was just released, the Silencio SC9540. It boasts sophisticated and powerful tools, and they claim that it’s also quieter than ever so you can clean at any time of the day or night. The Silencio features a Multi Chamber suction system, which is more powerful than conventional vacuum cleaners and maintains a high level of suction power no matter what surface you are cleaning. With the Silencio’s Silver Nano technology and HEPA filtration system, you’re protected against harmful dust particles and mites, even if you are a pet owner.

NPD has released the year-end sales numbers for non-PC video games in 2007 showing record figures for the industry. The year 2007 brought an impressive 43 percent increase in sales compared to 2006 with a total of $17.94 billion.

Game Consoles
The highlights of the year come as no surprise if you’ve been reading our coverage of game console sales with the Nintendo Wii topping the list of most console units sold at 6.29 million. The Wii spent the year at a lower price-point than rival consoles and caught the attention of a wide range of gamers. Behind the Wii in console sales was the Xbox 360 with 4.62 million units sold in 2007, which was helped out a little bit by the wildly popular Halo 3. Next in line was not Sony’s new Playstation 3 but it’s older brother, the Playstation 2. Sony moved 3.97 million PS2 units in 2007 and 2.56 million PS3s.