Microsoft's officially announced that the Xbox 360's 20 GB unit will now be reduced to US$ 299. The company's also confirmed the existence of a new 60 GB unit, which should be arriving in stores soon. Further details on this matter are available in the full article.

Microsoft's group marketing manager for Xbox hardware, Albert Penello, said at CES 2008 that Microsoft could actually support Blu-ray on the Xbox 360 console if the HD-DVD format fails. "If that's the way [consumers] vote, that's something we'll have to consider," he said in an interview. More on this at the full article.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Microsoft group product manager David Hufford noted that Microsoft is aware of the "sweet spot" when it comes to console pricing. He said: "We are well aware that the sweet spot of the market is really 199 bucks"

This is in light of the revealed plans of the company to present a more family-oriented marketing push for their Xbox 360 console. This strategy is the one that Nintendo's Wii is using at the moment.

As for Microsoft's take on Nintendo's "let's target moms" strategy, Hufford  says: "When Mom walks into the store and sees she can get a console with a game for US$ 250, she sees it as a US$ 300 value. They've done a good job."

Microsoft has attempted to expand its user base before, and despite Viva Pinata's less than stellar performance, Microsoft seems quite determined to expand their user-base. It was reported that UBS AG Analyst Heather Bellini expects an Xbox 360 price cut come the holidays and that this may help Microsoft woo mothers who are looking to get games for their children.

As to how this strategy will benefit the 360, Microsoft boss Peter Moore notes that expanding their user base is important to them. "If we don't make that move, make it early and expand our demographic, we will wind up in the same place as with Xbox 1, a solid business with 25 million people... What I need is a solid business with 90 million people," he says.

Other Microsoft execs have supported that sentiment, Albert Penello, director of Xbox global platform marketing has even said: "If you don't start building that content and reputation it never comes. I don't want to be pigeonholed as a hard-core machine."

Having said all that, it must be noted that Microsoft claims that they are winning over the female demographic with their title, Guitar Hero 2. Will that in tandem with a possible price cut help win over mothers and families and help grow the Xbox 360's user base? Supporters of the console certainly hope.

Ever since on10.net (Channel 10) announced to keep watch for the first of two major announcements from Microsoft, we kept our eyes glued on their site. And all it took was a quick refresh button for Tina Wood's post to come up: it's their exclusive video of Microsoft's unveiling of the Xbox 360 Elite. Yep, no shaky camera-phone footage; it's a real deal, 1-on-1 interview with Albert Penello. The long and short of it:

• Released: April 29
• Price: US$ 479
• 120GB hard-drive
• HDMI portandcables
• pre-loaded with digital content

Yeah, you heard that right. It's as if they're hitting one, two... THREE birds with one stone. Not only do they confirm the long standing rumors about the Elite itself, but now, they've also confirmed the other rumors about the 120GB hard-drive and HDMI support.

With regards to Halo 3... Well, maybe tomorrow's announcement will turn something up... Anyways, you can click the Read link below to watch the full interview.

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Or... you can watch the video below which we fished right out of YouTube!

We all have our own crosses to carry, and just because Microsoft is ranked 48th in the Fortune 500 list, it doesn't exempt them from carrying the crosses that they should bear. One of those crosses is the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility issue which has been dogging the company ever since.

Without a doubt, the MS guys working on it including Albert Penello, are doing their best to bring great Xbox games to the 360. From our earlier report about Mr. Penello's insights on backwards compatibility, it seems that the guys who bear the unenviable task of making Xbox games compatible with the 360 are having a hellish time - but as they say one man's hell, could be another man's heaven.

Such is the case of one Michael L. Brundage, one of those nameless devs who have been slaving to make Xbox games compatible with the obviously more powerful gaming beast -- the Xbox 360. He finds the Xbox backwards compatibility to be a unique project, in the sense that normally, once you understand how something magical works, it's much less amazing. With Xbox backwards compatibility, the opposite is true -- the more you understand what it needs to do, the more certain you are that it's impossible, and consequently the more amazed you are to see it in action. Obviously, he feels fortunate to get to work on it.

He believes that it will be the hardest technical challenge of his career. He enthusiastically divulges that it's "not just the difficulty of emulating completely different processors and devices. It's also all the arcane knowledge I've needed to acquire about kernel-level development, advanced graphics processing, operating systems and computer architectures. It's changed the way I think about software."

And in his own words, he says that "a few people who understand how emulators work look at these numbers, impressive as they are, and conclude that Xbox backwards compatibility will not work." Included in that 'few people who understand' is himself. But doing something deemed as impossible is so much fun, according to Brundage. What makes it fun? The challenge of making the impossible possible. That's nice and all, let's just hope that Mr. Brundage's positive attitude results to more backwards compatible games.

The Microsoft camp has been having some backwards compatibility issues, the gaming community knows that already. In our earlier report, we have mentioned that you can now play on the 360 the Xbox1 titles DOOM 3, Lego Star Wars, and Minority Report, among many others. But there are good and critically-acclaimed Xbox games that have not been blessed with backwards compatibility -- a good example is Psychonauts, which has been pleading for compatibility in the longest time.

So, to shed more light on the issue is Albert Penello, Microsoft's Director for Global Platform Marketing. The Xbox 360's ATI GPU and IBM CPU were miles and miles different from its older brother, the Xbox, which housed a Nvidia GPU and Intel CPU, forcing Microsoft's engineers to rely on emulators. Mr. Penello talked about the intricate processes involved in backwards compatibility and why some games make it and some don't.

The interview started with Mr. Penello giving a quick overview of the process of making an Xbox game playable in the 360. He said that during the earlier days, they were aiming to make a general-purpose Xbox emulator which could be capable of playing as many different games as possible. That platform has become efficient in the last months and they are now able to focus their attention to individual games one at a time. The process involves several weeks which includes active development, test time, and the process of checking if it could be compatible to other games.

When choosing what Xbox games would make the list and what games would be left out in the cold for the time being, Mr. Penello emphasized the fact that they will first consider the top-selling titles and games with a large Xbox Live following, along with gamers' feedback. He also said that there is no conscious decision to pass over games that already has an Xbox 360 version wherein he cited Ghost Recon and Dead or Alive as an example.

When asked about the compatibility state of games likePsychonauts, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Chronicles of Riddick, and Links 2004, he gamely answered that although he can't confirm whether or not they are working on 'em, he assures the gaming community that customer feedback is both read and considered. That alone seems pretty challenging since people's Top 5 games tend to vary.

So what's your opinion about all these? What are your Top 5 Xbox games that you wish would be compatible to the Xbox 360? Do you think that the Backwards Compatibility Team is doing a good job or do you think that there is ample room for improvement? Let us know through your comments.