Red Rings bringing your Xbox 360 down for the count? Microsoft's still trying to make ends meet, albeit still a bit too late for some. The big MS is doing it quietly too: the new Xbox 360 Japser motherboards, which supposedly have the RRoD-proof(?) 65nm GPU chips, have been spotted in the wild without much fuss from the console manufacturer.

Sitting here on this computer chair, reading about the week's that's just passed, I'm amazed at how many updates have occurred in the interim. The spotlight happens to be shining on a few select games, with a number of updates, as well as surprising words from people in the industry. Let's take a look at this week's Xbox 360 Weekend Warrior, shall we?

Gaming piracy is a serious problem that seems impossible to eradicate. But is there hope for game developers? According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, there is, thanks to the TPM encryption chips that are being built into some of the latest motherboards. More in the full article.

Microsoft's been under a lot of heat because of the Xbox 360 overheating issue (pun intended). To address this, Microsoft came out with Project Falcon, a new Xbox 360 model sporting the 65nm chip, which will offer a significant reduction in heat. Ben Heck, modder extraordinaire, got the new Falcon model Xbox 360 and tested it against the older Zephyr model in a laptop-type environment. He found that the Falcon runs much cooler than the Zephyr. Details in the full article.

The person who first spread the rumor of Bungie leaving Microsoft which eventually came true, Jake Metcalf from 8BitJoystick, claims he had a chat with someone who worked with Microsoft on the Xbox 360 project for years and knows why the 360 is suffering from hardware failures. If this "insider" is to be believed, Microsoft intends to release a new 360 SKU every year and consoles for the next-generation are already being developed by the platform holders. Head over to the full article for more details.

Think you've seen everything when it comes to Microsoft Xbox 360 cooling mods? Think again! Creative Xbox 360 owners have built one made of Lego building blocks. This mod not only manages the heat, but looks very nice as well. You can view a video of it when you proceed to the full article.

*UPDATE* Llama decided to do a Part 2 to their little anatomy discussion. The new pics come from the back of the Elite motherboard, but by comparing these with the launch 360 motherboards, they've strengthened their suspicions that the Elite isn't using (yet) 65-nm technology.

The interesting part to most is the area under where the CPU connects we see lots of changes around here but its mostly just smaller components in a tighter space. The Ball Grid Array size has of course not changed so although we see a denser arrangement of smaller components we should not take this to mean that it is necessarily the 65nm core.

---

Llama.com takes an Xbox 360 Elite and takes the stuffing out of it. Hey, it's all in the name of "being able to repair - or mod - the Xbox 360 Elite in the future (no matter what Microsoft's EULA may say)." Here are the bare essentials of what they found:

• It uses the Hitachi GDR-3120L FK78 DVD drive, meaning "extracting the drive key and flashing the firmware of this unit won't be a problem!"
• Llama's amused at "Microsoft's most creative measures to minimize the dreaded Xbox 360 3 flashing red lights 'Ring of Death' error caused by poor BGA connections of the CPU and GPU": ""The good ol' a dab (of glue) will do ya methodology"
• The 120GB HDD uses a Fujitsu MHW2120BH drive. "Our initial attempts at dumping Sector 16 using The Specialist's hdhacker application was not a success... Without the Sector 16 you will not be able to upgrade your stock 20GB drive to 120GB the cheap way." Oh well, for now, you have to buy Microsoft.
• The fan header's been switched from the 4-pin Molex to a standard 3-pin fan header connection. For those who're using the Talismoon Whisper Fan, Llama's now offering 3-4 pin adaptors.

More at the Full article.

The whole videogame industry is currently in the middle of the transition to high-definition next gen visuals with the introduction of DirectX 10, and to make the transition an easier process, here comes Nvidia with the "definitive" game development platform, Nvidia SDK 10.

The core of Nvidia's new platform is the new NVIDIA Developer Toolkit. It promises to "save developers time and money in creating games that deliver almost lifelike graphics and physics realism." The platform consists of Nvidia GeForce(R) 8 Series graphics cards, Nvidia nForce(R) 680 motherboards, and DirectX 10.

The new NVIDIA Developer Toolkit also includes instructive code samples, advanced shaders, performance tuning, and more, all in a bid to make the creation of Microsoft DirectX 10-compatible games easier.

The Nvidia Developer Toolkit also includes the following:

• SDK 10: all-new DirectX 10, OpenGL, and CUDA code samples for the latest GPUs
• Texture Tools: Powerful libraries and plug-ins for working with textures - now with DirectX 10 support and approximately 10x faster due to GPU acceleration via CUDA
• PerfKit 5: powerful tools for debugging and profiling GPU applications for Windows Vista and DirectX 10 -- now with shader edit-and-continue, render state modification, customizable graphs and counters, and more
• ShaderPerf 2: detailed shader performance information with support for new drivers
• FX Composer 2: a world-class development environment for cross-platform shader authoring; DirectX and OpenGL support with HLSL, Cg, and COLLADA FX
• Shader Library: the world's largest collection of GPU shaders featuring more than 100 different shader effects and support for external submissions

Nvidia is currently demonstrating the entire development platform and distributing some of its components free of charge at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

We heard the rumor and the counter-rumor on whether or not future Xbox 360 will come with built-in HDMI port. So why the fuss about HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)? HDMI provides an interface between any compatible digital audio/video source, such as a set-top box, a DVD player, or an A/V receiver and a compatible digital audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV). If Xbox 360 supports HDMI, gamers can expect high-definition video (if they have HDTV) and digital audio.

Unfortunately, we cannot deny or confirm if the new Xbox 360s will ship with HDMI port but we can show you a mysterious photo taken by an even more mysterious person. It is supposedly an Xbox 360 motherboard with a HDMI-port. The source claims to have seen with his own eyes three HDMI motherboards which, if true, could mean MS might be working on a new Xbox 360 version that matches the PS3's HDMI capability.