Microsoft sold 4.3 million Xbox 360 game consoles in the last three months of 2007, boosted by popular titles such as "Halo 3" and "Mass Effect." Despite the success Microsoft said it was "disappointed" with issues surrounding its online gaming service and offered a free downloadable game to over 8 million global users of the network.

Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten said," As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break.  While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance."

Microsoft has sold a total of 17.7 million Xbox 360s since it first went on sale in late 2005. Previous sales figures from the company showed that 13.4 million consoles sold by the end of September.

Microsoft rivals include Nintendo’s Wii console and Sony’s PlayStation 3 console. Nintendo and Sony have not released holiday sales data for their consoles. At the end of September, around 13.2 million Wiis and 5.6 million PS3s had been sold worldwide.
 

Sony Busted Editing Halo 3 Wikipedia Entry

Halo 3 might be the most anticipated shooter for Microsoft’s gaming console ever since the original Halo helped gamers everywhere rationalize purchasing the first Xbox. In the competitive world of video games, not everyone shares that enthusiasm.

Not everyone tries to tweak Wikipedia to downplay a rival’s game title, though. Sony has been caught doing just that, according to Ars Technica:

The contributor claims that Halo 3′s graphics won’t look much better than Halo 2, citing a Time story from March. Page 52, if you’d like to look it up.

For some crazy reason MaxConsole ran the IP itself and isolated the IP range to a particular place: SCEE’s Liverpool offices. Someone at Sony isn’t too happy with the state of Halo 3′s graphics, and they want to talk about it.

MaxConsole said, “Sony added “Halo 3 won’t look any better than Halo 2″ to the entry, although the page has been corrected and locked from further alterations.”

Though Ars Technica writer Ben Kuchera said the minor edit does have a credible source, “If I were working for any of the big three (console makers) I’d be telling my employees to stay away from Wikipedia. It just doesn’t look good when stuff like this comes out.”