It’s being reported that Fallout 3, the blockbuster post-nuclear action adventure title from Bethesda which only yesterday went gold has already been leaked and pirated, a full 20 days before it’s slated release. Ouch. P2P services internet-wide are blazing with torrents of ripped copies for the Xbox 360 floating freely around. Neoseeker is speculating that this must be an early review copy, leaked by a scrupulous games reviewer, which we tend to agree with, unless someone from the duplication facility overseas really worked their piracy network into overdrive.

Bad news for those of you with the free, Silver-level Xbox Live account who actually wanted to give money to Microsoft and Netflix for their upcoming streaming movie service launching soon on the platform. You won’t have access to it. Why not? Simply put, on top of the Netflix subscription, you’ll also have to subscribe to an Xbox Live Gold subscription, pretty much limiting the service to those who care enough to pay to be verbally abused by 13 year olds while playing multi-player games.

When MTV’s Multiplayer asked Microsoft why at E3, there was no clear answer. Now there is, courtesy of Xbox Marketing Director Albert Penello. In Short: Making back bandwidth and licensing costs, and oh, helping add more value to Xbox Live’s subscription service.

“I think it’s about adding value to the gold membership,” said Xbox director of marketing Albert Penello. “I mean, obviously, the partnership there — it’s a lot of bandwidth. Obviously, there’s the cost of the licensing on the Netflix side, so…you’re not really paying for the movie. On silver, you have to pay for the TV show or movie that you download. Here, you don’t, so the relationship in gold kind of takes care of that funny business.”

As part of it’s voter registration campaign along with Rock the Vote, Microsoft is allowing Xbox Live players to virtually vote for their presidential candidate of choice. With the Xbox’s overwhelmingly younger demo behind it, it’s no surprise we’re seeing Obama eeking out McCain 43% to 31% with a large group of undecided at 13% and “other” at 13%. Possibly telling however, is the amount of voter registration forms which have been downloaded via the service since the campaign began. At 55,000 that’s quite a nice number to see, considering how under-represented the youth-generation is around the country.

Source: Accountalutionary

Over the weekend, Yahoo via it’s Playback video blog series took a quick look at the ongoing console wars, declaring that the PS3 is struggling against the monstrous power of Nintendo and the resurgence in love for the Xbox 360.

Taking a quick peek over to VG Chartz we’re seeing that while Microsoft has had some momentum in Japan, which was no doubt a surprising turn of events in Sony’s backyard, the Xbox 360 is by no means leaps and bounds ahead of the PS3. The real question is, can Microsoft keep the pressure up with exciting releases and rumored price drops, thereby widening the sell-through gap? Also, what to do about Blu-Ray? Sure it’s a great format, but still not perfect and certainly not excepted among the mainstream. The driving force of monopolizing the next-gen DVD market doesn’t seem to be injecting Sony with a console sales push (and will it ever be referred to as the “Blu-Ray Market” among the mainstream?). So what’s Sony to do? Price drop? We certainly hope so, but can Sony really afford to bleed anymore with the PS3?

Regardless, neither of them can compete with Nintendo’s Wii, the comeback kid who everyone discounted at the beginning as being too gimmicky or under-powered. Seems the move to cater to the casual gamers, in effect carving out your own niche in the console market, was quite a brilliant move.

Google is going after the TV, with the launch of it’s Windows-only Google Gadget, the Google Media Server. Finding photos, music and video, Google Media Server makes content from your PC available over your network to DLNA devices, such as the Playstation 3 and most Media Center PCs. Unfortunately at this time the Xbox 360 (or Nintendo Wii), though supporting DLNA, is not supported due to signing issues. According to a Google Media Server developer comment, Google Legal did not allow developers to ‘trick’ the Xbox 360 into believing the GMS was signed (for DRM purposes) into believing it were a Microsoft Product, though the developer pointed out there were ways around the internet to achieve this on your own.

The Google Media Server acts as a bridge, allowing you to serve up videos, music and photos as well as Picasa Web Albums and favorite YouTube videos to your Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) devices. No word on when they’ll start streaming Google Ads to your TV however.

Read more: Google Media Server

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

According to the GTA IV game details page on XBox.com, the new GTA IV trailer will appear today via the XBox Live Marketplace in high-definition! With the clock now ticking past 6 1/2 hours left to go, here’s to sitting back and watching Xbox Live crash and burn tonight.

Read more: GTA IV @ Xbox.com

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..

Read more of “Microsoft crashes French PS3 launch party“

Having trudged through as much Gears of War I can stand for the moment and going through Lost Planet in a few evenings, I’ve been looking forward to what my next purchase for the 360 is going to be. A stealthy action-horror title, Rain (Vampire’s Rain in Japan), looks like it’s going to be it! With a heap of Japanese science-fiction, enough dark corners to move a city into, raging vampires and stealth-action gear second to Splinter Cell’s, Rain takes you to a suburban Los Angeles, overrun with vampires who are than willing to turn you into their next meal. You as the player are the vampire hunter, using technology to determine who among the city are actually dormant vampires, all taking place in a gothic-inspired rendition of LA, which features a much-touted weather and water effects system to enhance the immersion and give you the feeling you’re stuck in a water-soaked vampire hell.

Watch the video after the jump..

Read more of “Rain trailer for Xbox 360“

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