If you read gaming news every so often, there's a fat chance that you've already heard of new Xbox 360 units codenamed Jasper and Valhalla on the way. In the latest buzz about these shadowy new versions of the console, it was reported that IBM and TSMC have already received orders from Microsoft to start manufacturing the chips. More details follow after the jump.

Ready for a lot of hardcore techie talk? During the recent 24th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany, Felix Domke and Michael Steil went into a detailed discussion about the different levels of security on consoles and handhelds during the past few years. They focused mostly on the silicon-based security system for the Xbox 360, and they also talked about the intricacies of today's security systems on the consoles and a lot of other insights on the homebrew scene.

Watch the very informative video of the lecture right after the jump!

Around a month ago, Bethesda announced a Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) perk making contest, and 17,000 entries made their way into the Bethesda gaming vaults, hoping to become the next Fallout perk. Well, Bethesda has announced the winner of its Fallout 3 perk making contest, and we can certainly tell you right now... it's not us!

Find out who won after the jump!

Mercury News journalist Dean Takahashi has just reported on Microsoft's alleged new move to counter Sony's recent price cut for the PlayStation 3. The strategy will be under the codename "Falcon" and, according to Takahashi, will center around the latest internal electronics in the Xbox 360.

The said internal electronics will be composed of an IBM microprocessor and an AMD/ATI graphics chip that are manufactured in a 65-nanometer production process. We've already talked about this one before. Basically, these chips are similar to the 90-nanometer ones but are smaller and more efficient.

Takahashi added that this will ultimately solve the console's problems with overheating. Quite interestingly, the journalist also noted that Microsoft may opt to do a lot of things: put in the unsightly brick-style power supply inside, make a smaller version of the core or beef up the console even more.

Dean Takahashi spoke with one representative from Microsoft but the spokesperson declined to comment. However, when he asked Head of Games Division Peter Moore regarding Falcon, the following was the response he got:

We have a bunch of different projects that cost reduce and improve quality as you find issues, as does our competition. Once you get millions in the field, you learn about the box under all kinds of different circumstances, you can adjust and tweak what you do accordingly.

 

Set in Greece, Theseis features the exploits of Andronicos and Pheve as they try to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of their stepfather. The game combines the realms of the natural and supernatural as brother and sister join forces to put to rest the struggle between good and evil that his disappearance brings about.

We recently had the chance to chat with Track 7's Demetris Papadopoulos, product manager for Theseis, about their upcoming game. In the interview, we were given a peek as to what to expect for the PC version, as well as some hints as to what gamers might see in the future 360 version. More importantly, he gave us a glimpse of Greece, past and present, and that's something many adventurers, perhaps even Andronicos and Pheve's father, would have been willing to give their lives for.

   

The Full Interview after the jump!

Sorry folks, but it seems that Mark Rein himself has already spoken out and put a stop to the rumors which stated that the popular Xbox 360 title, Gears of War, may be ported over to the PC.

Mark Rein says "No".

Well, he didn't actually say "No", but he did explain how all the ruckus happened, particularly the part where people spotted a line of script in an Nvidia driver which got everyone's hopes up.

According to Rein, during the first E3 demo which they did a couple of years back, the demo was "done on an PC equipped with dual NVIDIA graphics cards. That was how we simulated the power of Xbox 360 before there was actually a real Xbox 360 to run on". He then goes on to say that it was necessary for them to provide a copy of the file "wargame.exe", along with sample content from Gears of War to NVIDIA "so they could help us tweak Unreal Engine 3 performance and reliability on NVIDIA graphics chips".

So to settle things once and for all, he says that,

...in reality the only thing this supposed "leak" demonstrates is that we work closely with NVIDIA to ensure the best possible performance for our engine on their platforms. Ditto for ATI and other graphics vendors as well.

So there.

Yes, we love our violent video games, but the truth is, we're entitled to them. Most of us gamers are over 18 after all, so we should be considered "mature" enough to handle and at the same time be entertained by all the blood, sex, and gore that we immerse ourselves in while playing our favourite games.

The problem with that, is that's all that the outside world thinks about us. Outsiders generally view the gaming sub-culture as a collection of violence addicted pre-pubescent-underage or overage-yet-still-stuck-in-the-basement, pimply anti-social avoidant, self indulgent, will never enjoy the company of the opposite sex, individuals. Despite the presence of gamer-culture/geel-culture centric websites and TV channels, a lot of old farts in power still don't "get it."

They tend to forget that a lot of gamers now-a-days aren't only young people who play games, but are people who make art, people who earn billions making games, people who have children of their own, and people who are care.

Think of this post as a collection of recent news stories that show very good examples of how we gamers should represent ourselves to the world.

Giving back to the community...

You've got to hand it to those guys from Penny-Arcade, they know how to give back to the community. They really do their best to make claims that say that gamers are know-nots or that gamers are violence addicted yahoos irrelevant. For one thing, officials of the Child's Play Charity, a gamer-focused toy drive organized by Penny Arcade, has recently announced that more than $495,000 worth of toys, games, and books on the wish lists of more than 35 participating children's hospitals have been donated as part of the gamer supported charity.

It doesn't stop there. The annual charity auction dinner of Child's Play is set to be held next week. All proceeds from the auction will be set to assist hospitals within the charity's network. This year's dinner is scheduled to take place on Wednesday December 13 in Bellevue, Washington.

Items up for bid this year include a Wii console autographed by Reggie Fils-Aime, a speaking line in Halo 3, a PS3 console, an appearance in the Penny Arcade comic strip, Penny Arcade artwork, tickets to the Halo 3 launch party, an Xbox 360, ATI Radeon video cards, collectors edition of Guildwars Nightfall, and a whole lot more.

With items like those, people will definitely bid.

Get the rest of the article after the Jump!

Intel has announced that their upcoming major event on the World Series of Video Games circuit will be called the "UK Gaming Championship" and will be held at the London Trocadero in Piccadilly Circus. In store for attendees are a tournament area where they can watch the world's top gamers work their magic on gameplaying, an experiential zone for free gaming and walk-on tournaments, a music and games party, and tons more.

The said event will feature professional gaming tournaments in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, Counter Strike 1.6, and the Xbox 360's Quake 4. Those who decide to attend the event can choose to compete, or just simply watch the world's best players strut their stuff and battle it out for over £40,000 (that's roughly 76 grand for us) worth of cash and other prizes.

The top gamers from around the world including Fatal1ty, Stermy, Toxic, Team Fnatic, and England's own 4 Kings, will be flying in for the event, where new games and technologies will also be featured, with prizes and free giveaways from sponsors including Intel, Fatal1ty Brands led by Creative, and ATI.

The music and games party will be held on Saturday night from 7pm-10pm, featuring a DJ and a contest for the “Miss World Series of Video Games.”  If you wanna join in on the partying, all you have to do is link the World Series of Video Games as one of your top 8 friends at the said event's Myspace page.

The UK Gaming Championship will be featured as a part of The London Games Festival, and will showcase the hottest games, seminars, and prominent people in the gaming industry.  The World Series event will also feature the World’s Largest Joystick, which measures 3 metres, and is actually playable. Now that's definitely something worth checking out, don't you think?
 
The UK Gaming Championship will run from October 6-8 and hours of operation will be 10-10 on Friday and Saturday, and 12-5 on Sunday. If you and your friends do decide to grace the event as a spur of the moment thing, all you have to do is pay a two-dollar door fee.

Just a while ago, ATi revealed that the XBOX360 won't be getting DirectX 10, or rather, it cannot run DirectX 10. Uneducated folks might see this as a bad point. Fanboys of other systems might use this as a point to bash the 360 and at first glance, it might scare off people. Thoughts like "It's not futureproof" might come in the minds of most customers. Well, how about we tell you that the absence of DirectX 10 won't make any darn difference to the games.

Read the full article after the jump!

"Xbox360 cannot run DX10."

That much is clear and simple from ATI, chips manufacturing company for game consoles. The statement came as a response to previous rumors that the Xbox 360 could receive an upgrade for the Microsoft DirectX API.

Through a spokesperson, ATI reiterated further that, "The Xbox360 has unique features including memory export that can enable DX10-class functionality such as stream-out. From what we're hearing, Crysis will support DX9 with some sort of use for DX10 features. It's likely that those DX10 visuals can be replicated on the Xbox360, but it can't be properly called DX10."

According to the buzz that spread just last week, the Xbox 360 would be upgraded to DirectX 10 through a patch that will enable easier cross-platform development of games.