Tomb Raider Anniversary coming to 360 (as DLC?)

Is there anything the ESRB can't do? Routinely revealing numerous Xbox Live Arcade games, the ratings board has now revealed that Tomb Raider: Anniversary is headed to the Xbox 360. In an interesting twist, the ESRB actually lists five different entries for the game, each with a different locale specified. In all, Peru, Lost City, Greece, Egypt, and Croft Manor are listed. This specificity leads us (and Joystiq) to conclude that Anniversary will be offered as downloadable content. Whether this is done via Tomb Raider: Legend or as independent downloadable episodes remains to be seen (if we had to guess, we'd say it'll be Legend DLC). Considering Anniversary costs $30 on other platforms, a $5-6 price tag for each episode on Xbox Live Marketplace would be reasonable (though we're not necessarily expecting it).

We really enjoyed Lara Croft's first outing on the 360, so here's hoping Eidos makes an official announcement soon.

Sonic 2 on the way to the XBLA

"Sonic was always destined to come to the Xbox Live Arcade at some time or another, but what version and when simply weren’t confirmed for such a long time. Finally, the ESRB have rated the game for the 360, meaning we should see Sonic 2 soon.

The original version of the game offered co-operative play, with one player as Sonic and the other as Tails, as well as some head-to-head, splitscreen races. The co-op play wasn’t relied upon quite as much as it was in Sonic 3, however both should be included and both should definitely have Xbox Live play. It’s the least they can do.

HD backgrounds are likely to feature too, with an updated graphics optionto boot if past retro games on the Arcade are anything to go by. Expect an official announcement from both Sega and Microsoft soon to confirm that the ESRB are the most reliable site for upcoming games."

Prince of Persia on XBLA next week

"If Pac-Man simply wasn’t good enough for you, then this news certainly should be. Prince of Persia has been confirmed to Eurogamer as the game next Wednesday, the game we first heard about last month.

There isn’t a specified price yet, but chances are it’ll be the more accepted 800 MS Points. A fair deal for an updated classic. The game has undergone a massive overhaul in terms of visuals, and will also feature a few new traps, puzzles and enemies.

Exciting news and certainly something to look forward to next week, especially since the Halo 3 Beta would have finished by then, and no doubt hundreds upon hundreds of people will be looking for something new to play. Prince of Persia Classic might just be it."

Forza 2 custom cars make their way to eBay

We've mentioned more than once that we're damned impressed with all the Forza Motorsport 2 custom cars out there (especially this one), but we're not sure if we'd be willing to actually pay for one. You know, with real money. It looks like custom Forza cars have begun to hit eBay. Honestly, we're surprised we didn't see this coming. So far we've found three different auctions for various cars, all priced at $10. These don't have the meticulous custom paint jobs we've seen, so we're guessing they're tuned more for performance. One seller is even creating his cars with individual numbers, hoping to make them collector's items.

Our question to you: would you pay real money for the ultimate Forza car?

Microsoft is running out of 360 coffins?

If you recognize the cardboard box pictured above, then you are one of the unlucky souls to have witnessed the Red Ring of Death. While Microsoft continues to refuse requests to publish failure rates, the failure stories show no signs of stopping. We certainly can't cover them all, and Peter Moore has suggested that failures themselves aren't important at all, but rather the service received in the event of a failure. Thus, we bring you this failure story by way of Joystiq. The protagonist of our story is one Officer Craig Ravitch of the New York Police Department.

According to Ravitch, he has gone through three Xbox 360 consoles since launch. His third recently broke down on him, prompting yet another call to Xbox customer support (something he's familiar with at this point). Customer support informed him that his 360 coffin -- the box used to send the console back to Microsoft -- would arrive on Tuesday. Ravitch never received confirmation that his coffin had been shipped, so he called customer support again. The representative informed him "the service department is running very low on boxes, so it will take a little longer than expected to get that box." Ravitch is quick to say that he loves his Xbox 360 and that it is his "favorite system," but he is understandably upset by the whole situation, noting "I hate to badmouth the 360, its one of my favorite systems, but this burns me."

Is it possible that Microsoft has sent out so many Xbox 360 coffins that they are running low? We have to wonder how much longer it will be before MS stops tap dancing around this issue.

All-Pro Football cover art and mad beats

"2K Sports just released All-Pro Football's official box art, the game's full roster and announced the complete soundtrack. So, let's dig in. The cover art is mildly dull featuring what look to be painted caricatures of NFL legends Jerry Rice, John Elway and Barry Sanders. We say 'meh'. The game's roster is a little more impressive with a slew of retired NFL stars including Troy Aikman, Gale Sayers and coach Mike Ditka. Finally, the All-Pro Football soundtrack features mash-up tracks done by DJ Z-Trip and is very heavy on the hip-hop flavor. All-Pro Football cover art, soundtrack track listings, and complete roster posted after the break."

Microsoft to Offer FREE Music Videos Over XBL

Microsoft is incorporating Xbox Live into its new Ignition program, offering free music to consumers via console, Zune media player and MSN. Music videos will be made available for free over the Xbox 360 online service, as Microsoft begins to offer promotional packages across the company's multiple media offerings.



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No Final Fantasy For Xbox 360

Looking for more Final Fantasy following the Xbox 360 port of Final Fantasy XI? Then you're going to have to look to a different next generation system. A Square Enix executive has disclosed to Japan's Nikkei BP that the company currently has no plans for Final Fantasy games on the 360.



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Burnout Paradise's Teaser collides with Marketplace

The beautiful, serene, and surprisingly crashless teaser trailer for Burnout Paradise is now available in glorious High Definition on Xbox Live Marketplace. While some of you readers complained that the lack of destruction didn't really do anything for you, the focal point was the city that will be literally at your disposal in the new gen aggressive racer. The trailer weighs in at 36.23 MB, which sounds about right for 60-ish seconds of content. Does it look like the new hawtness compared to the YouTube version we showed you before?

Exclusive footage from 3 new non-beta Halo 3 maps

"Dutch TV gameshow Gamekings recently went to Seattle to visit Bungie at their offices and while they were there they got to play with the latest build of Halo 3’s multiplayer. Of course this isn’t very interesting for anyone that doesn’t speak Dutch but the sweet thing is; they got footage. In their preview they showed about 6 minutes worth of gameplay from the new build including footage from Last Resort (the new Zanzibar), Epitaph and one other new map. We figured we didn’t want to bore you with Dutch chitchat so we extracted all the good stuff and combined it into a nice little trailer, which is embedded after the jump."

Unfortunately the source material, courtesy of NeoGAF’s itsgreen, is in SDTV and has some interlacing issues but it’s good enough to give you a general idea of what these three maps are going to look like. The guys from Gamekings also did some interviews but nothing new came up unfortunately, though they did hear some rumblings about the rumored 4 player co-op. Bungie didn’t reveal anything from the Singleplayer campaign unfortunately.

Apart from the new maps there’s also a compass built in the HUD, right under the health bar. It’s also interesting to see that the bubble shield seems a bit more easier to notice now. Feel free to point us to other differences between this build and the Beta in our comments while we drool about the hotness of the new Zanzibar some more.