Microsoft has just posted some of the first statistics since the NXE was released and it appears that the NXE has been a very good move, financially at least. The number of new friends added has risen by 33% which is being put down to the new party system, while this has no immediate benefit it will obviously entice people …

You know those moments in life when you suddenly realise everyone else knows somwthing you don’t? Like when you’re told to go ask little Suzy out even though everyone (but you) knows that little Suzy is going out with Billy Bob and doesn’t like you? No? Well… lets get back to gaming now shall we. This just in,  2 weeks …

Earlier this week I was browsing through the NXE and happened to see an interesting little bit of news about this upcoming weekend (28 - 30 November). This weekend coming is going to have a Live promotion called "Xtival '08" running that will allow all Xbox Live Silver Members to play online. Not only that but it also looks as if there are going to be a few exclusive downloads available as well. So if you are one of those people who have not yet decided to get a gold account or maybe have a friend who is thinking about getting one, hook up the boxes this weekend and try it our for yourself. Free multiplayer and access to a whole bunch of downloads at no extra cost? Hell, they may as well just called it Feel-what-it's-like-to-use-PSN weekend.

Oh well I guess you can’t be right all the time. It seems that Microsoft and Netflix have managed to sort out the licensing issues surrounding the Sony Columbia Pictures movies not being available for streaming on the NXE. So unfortunately this ones a bust as both 1up and Evil avatar are reporting all movies are back up and working …

Well, sort of. With the new Avatar system being integrated into the new Xbox 360 dashboard, some people have been hard at work (read: bored) creating avatar versions of some of their favorite characters and people including Super Mario, Kratos, Chuck Norris and more. Game characters, movie stars and political figures are in the line-up and heck even some really bad creations are in there too. I have posted a couple after the jump but you can check out the rest of them by following the link at the bottom of the article. source: Check out the whole bunch created by the guys at GamesRadar by clicking here.

Now that Microsoft has followed Sony’s ludicrous decision to allow installs the entire world is doomed… Okay so maybe it’s not that serious but I swear people are going to be complaining about this in a year or two when they are running out of space, consoles should never ever have installs. Rant over, now onto the good news. There …

  So I was just about to post the news about how to unlock the funky hair colours for you avatar on the NXE and I stumbled across this video. So I thought I would take the lazy way out and just post this instead of trying to explain the complicated procedure… Enjoy and I hope to see a lot …

Xbox 360 ‘NXE Avatar Daft Punk’ clip So it took little over a day for gamers to come up with some new uses for Avatars, first up – Music videos. Have a look at these two groovy videos Xbox Live user Tronic Games whipped up using only the new dashboard, some electronica, and a little imagination. It’s gonna be cool …