Xbox Live

Yesterday Microsoft has announced availability of update for a new Xbox 360 System. The update offers an auto-standby feature that places the console on standby if it’s idle for more than one hour that significantly reduces power consumption. This feature automatically gets enabled if the update is installed.  

Microsoft has issued a warning against phishing scam practiced by perpetrators over the company’s Xbox Live network. Meantime, Sony is struggling the consequences of a massive security breach reported this week.

The warning posted on the Xbox Live support page says that the phishing scam appears to be directed at those people playing "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" online:

The first set of games for Windows Phone 7 has been announced by Microsoft on Tuesday at the GamesCom 2010 conference in Cologne, Germany. The set was compiled out of games created by studios such as Gameloft, Konami Digital Entertainment, Namco Bandai, PopCap and THQ. The 60 titles include such items as Assassins Creed, Bejeweled LIVE, Castlevania, Frogger, Guitar Hero 5, Halo Waypoint, Splinter Cell Conviction, two Star Wars titles (Conviction and Battle for Hoth), Tower Bloxx NY and Zombie Attack!

Sega Europe and Sega of America are planning to launch several of their Dreamcast games to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The first of these classics will be Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure, two of the very best titles available for Sega's last piece of hardware; Sonic will come first to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the Dreamcast.

 US law firm Abington IP last week published a webpage offering affected users of Xbox 360 to come forward and launch a class action lawsuit against Microsoft. The website posting says:

 Xbox 360 owners banned from Xbox Live for allegedly modifying their consoles have begun fighting back against Microsoft, releasing a step-by-step guide to side-stepping the software giant’s ban.

The unblocking process is a mixture of software and hardware trickery, and also requires you to have a spare “unbanned” Xbox 360 handy.

While the process is described by website Xbox-scene as "technologically complex", the website promises that the method “does indeed work”.

 About one million users of Xbox 360 were banned by Microsoft for hacking their consoles in order to play pirated games from the company's Xbox Live service. As a result a great number of cheap Xbox 360 consoles is now being sold on sites such as Craigslist. The average price for such a console is now around $90, much under the normal market price of around $200.