Atari and Eden have released a Lexus car pack for the Xbox 360 version of Test Drive Unlimited, featuring the incredibly hot Lexus GS 450h hybrid sports sedan. The pack is free via Xbox Live and also features the Lexus LS 460 luxury sedan model. For those Xbox 360 owners who haven’t yet tried Test Drive Unlimited, I encourage you to give it a try. It’s certainly not the greatest racer of all time, but the persistent atmosphere and recreation of Oahu are more than worth it.

Read more: Test Drive Unlimited

It seems Microsoft just isn’t feeling the Wii60 love anymore now that Sony has won a few minor PR battles in the UK. In a recent report by Daily Tech, Microsoft’s Xbox platform and Live product manager, John Rodman, implied that Wii customers are kids saying:

We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing. We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else.

Ouch!

Read more: MS: Silly gamers, Wii is for kids

Poor Sony. They just can’t catch a break. With their overpriced monster of a console failing to ignite the sales charts and now launching in Europe (for around $800 USD after conversion!) to a deafening lull, they have Microsoft trying to trip them up at every turn. From the official PS3 launch party held in Paris, the festivities were rudely interrupted when a barge carrying huge banners stating “XBOX 360 <3 YOU" floated on by, making PS3 fanboys around the world consider taking up high-seas piracy.

Watch video of the drive-by after the jump..

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New Line Cinema has won the rights to Epic / Microsoft’s super mega-hit Gears of War in a screenplay auction which consisted of a 21 page treatment by Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Derailed). Gears is of course MS’s biggest system seller since Halo, so let’s hope they go 1 for 2 in having one of their hits translated onto the big screen. I think there’s plenty of material to work with and it would be great to know actually what the heck is going on in the Gears universe with the game leaving so many unanswered questions.

Read more: New Line has rights to Gears of War film

Halo 3 gods Bungie have launched a new version of their community site, Bungie.net, improving usability and navigation in one fell swoop of the mighty sword of fandom. RSS feed, new ticker, easy access to everything in the Bungie universe and all the Halo 3 news you can shake a stick at.

See more: Bungie.net

Gaming and financial analyst Roger Eherenberg’s epic post tracking EA’s stock price and strategy is a great great read which he’s just revisited and revised. I’m actually still ingesting it all after the third read, but I can’t help but agree on just about every point raised. Focusing on EA’s mistake with focusing too much on the PS3, the article also takes Sony to task for their continued mis-steps in getting the PS3 into the homes of gamers and Nintendo’s brilliantly handled Wii which Eherenberg predicts is replacing the PS2 as the console of choice for mainstream gamers.

Read more: EA Revisited: Playing Catch Up on the Wii, Waking up to the Failure that is PS3

Crytek recently released a new DirectX 10 trailer for their upcoming FPS, Crysis, showing the world how things is done. What these folks are doing with their technology is beyond belief, but then again, with massive backers pumping lots and lots of money into them I’m not surprised what can be done.

Peep the future of high-budget AAA game development for Windows Vista after the jump..

Read more of ”Crysis DX10 trailer, minds are blown“

NPD has announced their sales figures for the busy holiday season and the results were a very pleasant surprise for the industry. Hardware was king this holiday season, though, surprisingly, it was the two recently launched consoles (the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3) which carry the biggest disappointments.

Nintendo, as expected, destroyed their competition, but it wasn’t thanks to the Wii, which sold a respectable (but still disappointing) 604.2K units bringing it’s LTD up to 1.1 million in the US. It appears to me that shortages hurt here, though nowhere near as much as the shortages and lackluster interest in the PS3 has hurt Sony. The DS hand held however, cleaned house, selling a breathtaking 1.6 million units for December, solidifying Nintendo’s hold in the hand held race and giving thrifty parents a perfectly priced stocking stuffer for their kids.

Microsoft fared quite well, with the Xbox 360 clocking in with 1.1 million units, with Gears of War becoming a new “Halo-like” franchise for the strongest running next-generation console so far.

Sony are clocking in with surprising results. PS2 post major numbers, selling a whopping 1.4 million consoles. Whether this is actually a good thing remains to be seen. It appears the PS2 is still running quite strong, which may point to a lack of interest or lack of affordability to the PS3. I don’t know how proud Sony could be of having their last generation machine tearing into the customer base which should be purchasing their new console, but, income is income and right now they certainly aren’t making anything off of the PS3. More good news for Sony followed with the PSP, which showed a stronger than expected sell through, posting 953K units, surprising those who can’t figure out a reason to even turn their PSP on anymore. On to the PS3, which posted better than expected numbers, but still pointed to a worrying start for the more than half a grand machine. With 490.7K units (687.3K LTD) the PS3 showed that it’s supply problems were holding it back, but those are rumored to be clearing up.

Overall, total hardware sales rang up to $4.6 billion USD (up 42.8%) and software amounted to $6.5 billion USD (up 6.4%).

Read more: NPD analysis by GameDaily Biz

Our favorite Xbox Live Arcade blog covers the sales of some of our most favorite games and it seems to have been quite a great year for Live Arcade titles, a great sign, especially if the rumors of Microsoft’s owning this holiday season’s console sales are any indication. On the list, we can see that quite a lot of people played the free copy of Hexic HD included with every XBox 360 purchased and it’s refreshing to see UNO, one of the most un-Xbox style games you could imagine, being at the top of the 360’s game sales stats!

2006 Top Xbox 360 Titles (UU’s)
2 Hexic HD
9 UNO
12 Geometry Wars Evolved
14 Texas Hold ‘em

2006 Top Arcade Titles (Purchased)
1 UNO
2 Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting
3 Geometry Wars Evolved
4 Marble Blast Ultra
5 PAC-MAN
6 DOOM
7 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8 GALAGA
9 Gauntlet
10 Frogger
11 Bankshot Billiards 2
12 SmashTV
13 Contra
14 Zuma
15 Texas Hold ‘em
16 Bejeweled 2
17 Feeding Frenzy
18 Small Arms
19 Cloning Clyde
20 LUMINES LIVE!

Every Xbox 360 owner is anticipating the next version of Halo, coming soon(ish) from Bungie and Microsoft. Lately, MS and Bungie have been releasing teaser documentaries and behind the scenes looks into the ongoing development of the title, including it’s upcoming changes and storylines. This video shows the first ever gameplay footage of a pre-alpha build, in between interviews with artists and animators who are discussing the changes to the Brutes which will be coming to Halo 3. Cute, grumpy, fuzzy monsters no more, the Brutes are becoming full on, agile war machines!

Sit back and watch after the jump..

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