Just FYI, folks, on Monday, September 29, from 12am PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be down for "maintenance." Also, the My Xbox section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox.com forums will be read-only. This update is in preparation for the new Xbox OS, which will be available later this Fall. There will not be any visible updates or new features added, according to Nelson, so don't go looking once Live is back.

Peter Molyneux, the man behind Fable, has come out to reiterate the fact that his next game will not only be super ambitious, but "very, very, different" from anything that has been done before. He says the idea is very simple and "pure," but it is being done in a way that has never been tried before. More info when we have it.

"We've actually been working on another project now for a while, and obviously it's ridiculously ambitious, but it's ridiculously ambitious in a very simple way," he revealed. "It's a simple and pure idea, and very, very different to anything I've done before.

Today, Bungie has made available the title update 2 for Halo 3. The update includes new game achievements, but for now, only the ten listed at the Bungie site are the ones worth worrying about. There are more listed, but according to Bungie, they are tied to things yet to come which they cannot talk about just yet. The other addition is Playlist Ratings. Players will now have a separate rating based solely on game experience. Check the link for the full details, it is a bit complicated.

The Xbox360 price cut in Europe has apparently boosted sales almost 30%. The console has sold almost 6 million units since the cost was reduced. With games like Fable II and Gears of War 2 coming out for this Holiday season, MS is in a decent position in Europe, it seems.

The new Rockstar game, L.A. Noire, the supposed PS3 exclusive, may not be only for PS3 anymore. Tom Crago, the head of the Game Developer's Association of Australia, happen to mention that the game is coming to "PS3 and 360." Of course, Rockstar is still keeping mum on the game's details, rumor mill for now, as the game has another year or so to go, according to the devs.

According to Gamasutra, a new internal MS Game Studios job posting for a division called "Spawnpoint Studios," staffed partially by MS's Gears of War 2 team. GamaSutra surmises that this is the new name of the company's Halo team. Rumor mill for now, but it sounds plausible.

"Would you like to work on a next-generation project, built from the ground up in MGS / Spawnpoint Studios? We have a very strong team, currently responsible for Gears of War 2, starting a new project in a start-up like environment. This is a rare opportunity to work on a team of game industry experts tackling a new challenge."

Rockstar and Microsoft are hosting the Grand Theft Auto IV XBox Live weekend. Friday September 26 through September 28 in the US and Canada, gamers will be able to join multiplayer games with the GTA dev team, as well as register to win some great prizes. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), and Microsoft proudly present the Grand Theft Auto IV LIVE Weekend exclusively on Xbox LIVE® online entertainment network beginning Friday, September 26 through Sunday, September 28 in the United States and Canada. This special weekend will be open to Xbox LIVE Gold members of the Xbox LIVE community.

Just a quick heads up, folks. First, the demo for the new game with the super terrain-deforming features, Fracture, is now available. It weighs in at 773mb, so average size. Also, the Burnout Paradise update that includes bikes is now available. It is only 445mb, and should be tons of fun, so grab that too.

Mirror's Edge, the first-person jumping game that we are looking forward to here at GR, has an official release date - November 11, 2008. Players who pre-order the game, though, will get a special code to unlock an extra mode in the demo, which is due sometime around September 26. Oh, and, PC gamers will have to wait a bit longer for the game - no date yet. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

Guildford, UK – Sept 18, 2008 – Take a leap of ‘Faith’ this November! DICE, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced that the highly acclaimed first-person action adventure title, Mirror’s Edge™ will ship on November 11th for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system. The PC version of Mirror’s Edge will ship later in the winter. Prior to launch, players worldwide will get an early peek at the game when the demo* becomes available via Xbox LIVE™ Marketplace and PLAYSTATION® Store. The demo will feature the prologue of the game including the tutorial and a segment of the single-player story mode. Starting September 26th, players who pre-order Mirror’s Edge at selected retailers will get an exclusive code that unlocks the Time Trial mode in the demo.

Earlier today, there was a report From the Austin Game Conference that the Xbox360 version of the upcoming id Shooter Rage would suffer from content loss due to the limits of the console's DVD storage format. Well, the statement has been clarified by id Software's Tim Willits, who actually said it in the first place. Now, it seems that the overall story was not changed in any way, but how the player experiences it has changed. There was no content removed from the Xbox360 version, it seems, but the content has been reshuffled and re-fit in order to flow better on a DVD. All the content is there, and on the two discs the Xbox360 version ships with, there will be one big wasteland on each disc, rather than earlier today's report that each disc would hold 5 or 6 smaller environments. Good to hear, id!

"During my talk today I mentioned that we originally wanted to have around 5 or 6 smaller wasteland environments but later decided instead to have 2 larger wastelands," he explained. "Mostly because we were going to be shipping on two DVDs for the 360 and felt that it would play better with one large wasteland on each disc so there would be no loading between wastelands."