Chris Lewis, the VP of Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft Europe, has done the unexpected: he stood up for his company's machine. No wait, that's totally expected. Details after the jump.

With so much mystery still looming around the rumored PS3 Slim and a possible PS3 price drop announcement, Microsoft's Xbox Euro VP Chris Lewis believes the Xbox 360 is still in a good place in the console race. According to Lewis, any announcement from their opposition won't disrupt their plan, which is also rumored to include countering Sony's move with a price cut of its own.

With a change of tactics, Microsoft is now aiming to take their battle elsewhere. According to MS Europe VP Chris Lewis, the battle between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America is pretty much over and done with. Lewis notes that Microsoft has already "done the job we need to in North America," without going into explicit detail whether or not it meant that the Xbox 360 has actually won the battle. He did say that they want to up the success rate of the 360 over in Europe.

Just earlier, Sony finally revealed their March 31 announcement: they're slashing the price of the PS2 down to US$ 99. Microsoft marketing VP Chris Lewis has now responded to this, dismissing the pricecut as something not unexpected, and saying that "the future lies in the growth of current generation consoles."

Microsoft may be sacking 15,000 employees, but the Xbox 360 records its best European Christmas in the brand's six-year history, almost doubling 2007's sales, widening its lead over Sony's Playstation 3. They're now setting their sights higher as 2009 begins with their smashing success. More info inside.

On the balmy shores of Normany, the console wars rage on and it seems Private Sony's gonna need some saving. Check out the full article for more details on the Console Wars: Europe.

Microsoft is already claiming early victory on the Grand Theft Auto 4 front by outselling the PlayStation 3 version by 110,000 units in its first week. Does this mean the majority of GTA 4 gamers prefer the Xbox 360 version? Microsoft believes so. More details after the jump.

(Editor's Note: And a wham, bam, thank you, ma'am! It's time for another recap in QuickPeek 38!)

While some of us hate numbers, it's still interesting to see them all lined up there looking pretty. From piratical statistics, calendar dates, new version release numbers, price tags, survey results on "bedroom pasttimes", error codes, and, oh yes, blobs doing arithmetic.

We may have read reasons why Microsoft should support Blu-ray in the near future, but how about reasons NOT to? Here's a good one: according to Microsoft, digital downloads will eventually become the main venue of media distribution, hinting that Blu-ray's existence may become eventually irrelevant.  Read more in the full article.

We know that you are rather thankful that Microsoft has decided to finally bring down the Xbox 360 pricing for Europe. But we are also aware that you are quite curious how the price cuts have been made possible. VP Chris Lewis explains the details in the full article.