Microsoft, as it turns out, is embroiled in a long-drawn battle over the ownership of the patent for their online service Xbox Live. As it turns out, they are being sued by Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum for  infringing on their patent of a method for "communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations." Details after the jump.

We haven't heard much about Last.fm on the XBL ever since it was officially announced by Microsoft at E3 2009. All we know is that it's set to come out later this year, and that it will be free to Gold subscribers. But what of the other subscribers? Don't worry, we've got the dibs on that one, too. Find out how the set up goes after the jump.

You may very well expect advertisements on your Xbox Live within this year. Microsoft has just announced that they will be bringing rich media technologies to their online service, with Silverlight spearheading the pack. Details after the jump.

Microsoft has some great news for aspiring game makers. Kodu, Microsoft research's new "game lab" is now available on the Xbox Live Community Games channel. More details after the jump.

Analyst Michael Pachter expects that by 2015, 7th-gen console sales will end up like this: Wii on top, the PS3 in second, and the Xbox 360 in third place. The Wii's first-place position seems like a foregone conclusion, but what about the other two? More after the jump.

Bungie will be throwing in some free exploration elements into the Halo equation in the upcoming Halo 3: ODST. In an interview with the Seattle Times, Bungie also revealed that they've added in some mystery-solving elements as well.

Another week full of lawsuits. Poor, beleaguered company Midway came under fire once again, and this time it was from a very unlikely direction: the guy behind the Mortal Kombat movies is suing them in order to "protect his IP rights", which is a better way of saying that he wants to keep milking the MK franchise for as long as possible. Square Enix also got served with a class-action lawsuit for "deceiving" Final Fantasy XI patrons regarding fees. Not everything was bad, though. Read all about 'em after the jump in this week's Warrior recap.

Another gaming week has gone, but one thing always remains: there's always something to learn in the gaming industry, and we'd all like to be there every step of the way. This week on the Microsoft blog, we've got rules, giveaway themes, huge opportunities, and giant gameplays worthy of a show at the Giants Stadium's LCD wall. Dig in.

Are you ready for another round of price cut rumor? A trusted industry source from Ars Technica revealed that both the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be getting its fair share of price cut this fall.

We really haven't heard a lot about Crackdown 2 apart from the really sparse description we got from the game's official site. That's changing a bit today. Details after the super-powered jump.