While no one was looking last week at Xbox HQ we snuck into J's office to rummage through his trash for information on the 3rd generation Xbox — instead we wound up swiping his personal 360. The best part was when we ganked it from his desk to take some pictures of the thing his assistant said in a very loving, motherly voice, "Oh, I see J's been working on it some more." Yeah, you could say that.

So if you hadn't noticed, Peter and I were in Seattle last week — one of the things we were treated to for driving out to Redmond was an all-access tour of the Xbox facilities, courtesy of our main man, Major Nelson. See if you can notice which color plays a central role in the interior design theme of the facilities. Interesting side note: Xbox HQ is off-site from Microsoft's main campus in Redmond — apparently they wanted Xbox to function as its own independent creative unit apart from regular Microsoft operations. Click on for the full tour!

Sure, if your Xbox 360 is crashing you could call up Microsoft tech support and get your new toy repaired or replaced — or you could take design flaws matters into your own hands and source out the root of the problem. And according to one Gamespot forumsgoer, apparently what's causing these overheating Xbox 360 crashes isn't the Xbox itself, but rather that monstrous power supply. So what's a gamer to do? Increase the airflow over the thing by getting it up off the floor, and suspending it in the air with string — or if you're not feeling like making a trapeze act out out of the thing, stick it on an open box so it can better emanate heat. Apparently this has been doing some good, but hey, remember that if it can't sit on the ground as intended, it's defective, so make sure you call 'em up and get it sorted!

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

We've plenty discussed Xbox 360 backward compatibility issues over the last few months, but we've nary addressed what's in store for Sony's PlayStation 3. Maybe it was the PlayStation 2's recent difficulties in playing old (and even new) games that re-prompted the question, but it's almost like people have been taking it for granted that the PS3 would be able to play PS2 games—especially after precedent was set by having the PS2 play original PlayStation games and they ran their it's-gonna-be-backwards-compatible E3 launch in spite of Microsoft's then-soft stance on the issue. But after Sony's recent PS2 debacle overseas, it was reported that Sony spokesperson Reiko Sakamoto told the press, "It's hard to say the PlayStation 3 will be 100 percent backwards compatible, but as we said earlier this year we aim to make it so as much as possible." If they're having trouble making minor changes to the PS2 and actually leaving a bit of doubt as to whether the PS3 will work as expected, well, we're not liking the sound of this, not one bit.

[Thanks, Tomo]

The poor old regular Xbox just doesn't get much love anymore. The daily pressures of being a console are hard enough without the prospect of being supplanted by a faster, slimmer, and whiter version of itself. So show the old guy you still care with an additional four hard drives. That's right, 10GB just doesn't cut it in this media centric world, so why not slap a terabyte of storage in there? You know you want to. The X5 is an expansion kit that doubles the height of your existing box and adds the room for four drives (not included), a couple of fans, and an external knob for selecting which drive to run from. There is a decent amount of work involved to modify your unit with this expansion, but the instructions are fairly clear, and you won't be doing anything crazy like soldering to execute them. Sure four drives are absolute overkill if you're just humming along with a standard issue Xbox, but if you're running some of those mods all the hipsters are sporting these days, then this might be just the ticket for your multiple bootable Linux distro fantasies.

We can sort of deal with them region locking the DVD player — we've already got plenty of workarounds for that sort of thing — but it's been confirmed that Microsoft has decided to be predictably lame and region lock their new Xbox 360 console for games, too, just like they did with the original Xbox. We were secretly hoping they'd steal a page from Sony's playbook (they didn't region lock games on the PSP), but no such luck.

Going out of your way to boast about how hack-proof your next product is going to be is probably the only surefire way to get an army of hackers on your ass, but Xbox engineer Chris Satchell declared in an interview with BBC News that the Xbox 360 is going to have levels of security, "that the hacker community has never seen before." He does concede that "sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security," but he also says that even if someone does crack the Xbox 360 that it "doesn't mean that it will work on somebody else's machine" because of the way it's been designed. Fair enough, but do you really want to inspire someone out there to prove you wrong?

We'd originally heard something or other about Microsoft launching the Xbox 360 on November 4th or maybe November 22nd, but now IGN reports that the next-gen console is all set to drop on November 25th, aka the day after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday aka the busiest shopping day of the year (at least it used to be). The 25th is a little later than Microsoft had originally wanted to intro the 360, but apparently they wanted to give developers a little extra time to finish up their launch titles.

[Thanks, Dave]

EBGames.com is taking pre-orders for the Xbox 360, and just like when the PSP came out they're doing their best to gouge all the bleeding edge gamers who want/need to have the console first by forcing you to purchase either a $700 "Ultimate Bundle" that comes with four games and a ton of accessories or a $600 "Core Bundle" which comes with the same four games but fewer accessories. Pre-ordering either the basic $299 console or even the $399 bundle simply isn't an option, at least not at the moment, though it remains to be seen what pre-order options other retailers end up offering.

[Thanks, A.J.]

We tried really hard not read too much into Microsoft and Toshiba's tie-up yesterday over HD-DVD, but apparently Bill G. mentioned during a press conference in Tokyo yesterday that they might consider releasing an updated version of the Xbox 360 with an HD-DVD drive (though to be fair, Gates and other Microsoft execs were quick to point out that the company isn't endorsing HD-DVD over its arch-rival Blu-ray). Slapping in an HD-DVD drive would jibe with what Steve Ballmer hinted at us during his interview with us at E3 last month,  especially since the lack of a next-gen optical drive is one of the clearest technical disadvantages the Xbox 360 faces when compared with the PlayStation 3, which will sport a Blu-ray drive.

[Thanks, McVety]

You can argue (and we're sure you will) about whether they're being totally realistic or not, but Peter Moore, VP of Worldwide Marketing and Publishing for the Xbox, announced at a conference in London that Microsoft expects to sell 10 million Xbox 360 consoles within 12 to 16 months of its launch (which is set for later this year). Microsoft's banking on the first mover advantage (read up on the Dreamcast to see how this can be double-edged sword) and an avalanche of youth-oriented marketing to push them over the top this time around, but to put things in perspective, it's taken them almost four years to sell 20 million original Xbox consoles.

Yesterday afternoon Joystiq editor Ben Zackheim and I sat down with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss the Xbox 360. We talked with him about what he thinks it's going to take for the Xbox 360 to be a success (he thinks they're going to swipe the top spot from Sony), his take on the PlayStation 3, why we might see one or more new versions of the Xbox 360 next year (hint: never say never to a next-gen optical drive), Microsoft's plan for backwards compatibilty, some more details about the new console's integration with the iPod and the PSP, and how all of this fits into Microsoft's living room strategy. Also present for the interview was Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach.

The first question is one of the obvious ones, but are you a gamer?

Am I a gamer? Casual. I'm the father of three boys who are not as casual as I am.

What do they have?

I've got three different age ranges. I've got a thirteen year old, I've got a ten year old, and I've got a six year old, and they're all in different phases of life. The thirteen is kinda classic. He's sort of a first person shooter guy more than anything else. The second is a sort of a massively multiplayer game type guy, mostly PC-

Yeah, you're talking PC so far, huh?

No, no, no, my first guy is almost all Xbox. My second guy is almost all PC, with a little bit of Xbox. And I've got a six year old and he's actually a little PC-these sort of lightweight kind of cheap games you get online on the PC. And there are a few games he likes on the Xbox.

Do you play with your son on the Xbox?

Yeah I do a little bit. I do a little bit. But, you know, I have nowhere near the agility or capacity to learn which I should at my advanced age, I'm afraid.

Have you gotten any time with the 360?

Well, with the box itself? Yeah. Obviously we're not sort of in full play, but production mode...

Alright, it's (almost) the end of our very first day of Engadget/Joystiq team coverage of the big, big, big E3 gaming expo. Here's what went down today:

• Engadget & Joystiq's live coverage of Sony's PlayStation 3 launch (UPDATED with tons of new pics and info)

• More Playstation 3 Pics

• Engadget & Joystiq's live coverage of Microsoft's Xbox 360 E3 event

• Nintendo Revolution concept logos leaked?

• Engadget Podcast.28 05.16.2005

Check back tomorrow morning for live coverage of Nintendo's launch event for their new Revolution console.

Hey everyone, we up in the Shrine Auditorium to give you complete live coverage of Microsoft's Xbox 360 E3 event. We know they formally announced the device last week on MTV, but hopefully we'll all get some of these burning questions answered this evening. Stay tuned: we're live!

While we're waiting to get this show on the road, here's a quick recap of what's gone down. Today's Sony PS3 unveiling has opened up a world of questions regarding how Microsoft expects to maintain a competitive edge against a system that will supposedly have more than double the raw processing power, a next-gen media drive (Blu-ray, in this case), two-generation backwards compatibility, and even support for 1080p hi-def. We also still don't know how much the Xbox 360 is going to cost, an exact release date, what kinds of configurations it will have, and, of course the big question: will it have backwards compatibility?

Ok, we're getting started. Let's roll!

Hey ya'all, the Engadget and Joystiq teams are crewing it up tonight to bring you live Xbox 360 coverage, so stay tuned! Aight, here we go!

Elijah just showed up on the tube promising an "ultimate celebrity deathmatch."  We can't wait for that - celebs have shown time and again that they're gaming masters.  Why they led off with that we're not sure.  An ode to Atari and pong, as expected, and now "the future of gaming."

While The Killers slay the crowd, a brief note from the ourcolony video: "The basic gesture of the new console is double concavity. It's derived from the idea of an inhale. It has a very distinctive iconic gesture. This is <makes bong sucking noise with motion Ralph Maccio hand motion>."