If your PC is running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate, you have a great feature set you may not even know about: Windows Media Center.

Windows Media Center can turn your PC from a “plain vanilla” computer into something pretty powerful and impressive: the hub of your entertainment system.  Surprised?  Well (if you ask nicely), I’ll tell you more.

Use Windows Media Center to browse your music collection by cover art or year, organize photos and create albums and jazz up custom slide shows with music.  If you’re a sports fan, you’ll definitely want to check out your favorite team’s scores and stats on SportsLounge (U.S. and Canada only).

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And if you like movies and TV, you’ll enjoy Internet TV Beta. This new feature allows you to play free streaming video content on demand, choosing from more than 100 hours of TV entertainment, music concerts, movie trailers, news, and sports content from MSN Video.

Are you a film buff?  If so, you’re in

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Just in time for holiday, Microsoft Corp. today released a new Xbox 360^® console that delivers games and content to everyone in the family for an incredible value of $279.99 (U.S. estimated retail price)*. Available in stores beginning today, Xbox 360 Arcade console is the first Xbox 360 console to include five family-friendly games, a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory useful for storing games and entertainment content. At $279.99, the Xbox 360 Arcade console will include five best-selling games: “PAC-MAN Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.), “Uno” (Carbonated Games), “Luxor 2” (MumboJumbo), “Boom Boom Rocket” (Electronic Arts Inc.) and “Feeding Frenzy” (Sprout Games).

“As families gather together this holiday, it’s the perfect time to launch a new low-priced, high-value Xbox 360 that plays games, TV shows and music for everyone to enjoy,” said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing, Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “In addition to offering an incredible all-in-one package for families to get right into the fun, the Xbox 360 Arcade system features the industry-leading Family Settings, which allow parents to control what their kids are watching and playing

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Microsoft has admitted that the Halo 3 Limited Edition Game Disc suffers from case scratching problems and has offered to replace the discs free of charge under its disc replacement replacement scheme which they usually charge for. The program will cover the Halo 3 LE game disc essentials disc at no charge until the end of the year.

If, for any reason, you have a damaged Microsoft® Xbox 360™ disc and like to replace it, please review the information below:

THIS PROGRAM IS GOOD ONLY FOR XBOX 360 CONSOLE OWNERS IN COUNTRIES WHERE XBOX 360 IS SOLD AT AUTHORIZED RETAIL LOCATIONS.

NOTE: This program covers the Halo 3 Limited Edition Game Disc and Essentials Disc at no charge through 12/31/07.

News Source: www.xbox.com (via www.maxconsole.net)

Considering the fact that we have had reports of the Halo 3 street date being broken on multiple times, it was only a matter of time before internet pirate release groups leaked the game onto the internet. We have been sent an NFO file for the leaked Halo 3 which was released by the well known scene group ‘Paradogs’. The size of the game is 72×100MB, video mode is PAL (which is the regions where we have heard about Halo 3 release date breaks). We have also had another e-mail which indicates another group has leaked the title onto the web (which has been stealth patched to prevent detection from MS) and while the first ‘leak’ may be a fake, the second is definitely real due to multiple confirmations. Either way it definitely seems out there for pirates to enjoy.

News Source: www.maxconsole.net

Maxconsole.net received an e-mail from a person named Choi Wang who reveals that a Norwegian game shop called Expert today sold at least two copies of Halo 3 to the public, he added the following picture as proof. In the past, premature street date breaks have resulted in competitors following suit, if this occurs, we could all be purchasing Halo 3 a lot earlier than we thought.

News Source: www.maxconsole.net

The following video shows exactly what Microsoft changed in the new Xbox 360 Elite complete with commentary…

News Source: www.maxconsole.net