Does your Xbox 360 look out of place on your equipment rack? Does it just look too juvenile with the concaved case? Are you a boring old fart that still want the the Xbox 360 but need it to look more like a VCR than a gaming system? If so, the Xbox 360 Elegant Edition is for you.

Another Xbox 360 lawsuit? Oh, yes! Datel, which makes all sorts of video game accessories, has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft because it “has taken steps to render inoperable the competing Datel memory card for no visible purpose other than to have that market entirely to themselves.”

At least 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook this past week, which I guess means the feature is a bit of a success. (You’ll recall that Microsoft launched Facebook and Twitter to so much enthusiasm last week.) Mysteriously, Microsoft didn’t reveal the number of people who logged into Twitter. Is this the end of Twitter?

You’ll recall that Microsoft recently banned a bunch of people from Xbox Live because they had modded their 360s. Modding is against the rules, don’t you know? Microsoft told VentureBeat not to believe the numbers being thrown around—the number most relayed is 1 million banned 360s—because it never releases numbers to anyone.

This is the worst time to be a gamer. Yeah, it’s great that so many good games have come out recently (take your pick from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, etc.), but it’s pretty difficult to shell out $60+ every other day in the span of two weeks.

It’s safe to say that we hear at CrunchGear think you should be able to do whatever you want with hardware that you buy. Let’s take console modding. You wanna flash the drive on your 360 for whatever reason? Fine, go ahead. But don’t think that you can log onto Xbox Live with said modded console, and play your misbegotten wares (or is that warez?), on Microsoft’s network. It’s against the TOS, it makes a mockery of the entertainment medium that you purport to support, and, well, is unfair to the other players.

Look at CNET, breaking news left and right. The site ran a little survey asking its UK readers how many times their video game consoles crashed. No surprise: the Xbox 360 leads the pack with a full 60 percent of heaving died (due to the red ring of death). The PS3 comes in at 16 percent (yellow light of death?), and the Wii is only 6 percent.

Final Fantasy XIII will come out in North America on March 9, 2010 for both the PS3 and Xbox 360. So says the official e-mail we just received. You can’t see it, but there’s a smile on my face right now.

It seems the Internet doesn’t like GameStop too much, so I’m not sure how this story will be received. The retailer announced at a conference in New York yesterday that it will launch some sort of in-store DLC service next year. That is, let’s say you buy Game, then immediately buy related DLC from inside the store via a special interface. (GameStop worked with both Sony and Microsoft to figure all this out.) Then, when you get home, the DLC is ready to be added to your game.

As of next Tuesday, November 17, you’ll be able to access Twitter and Facebook on your Xbox 360. The software update is free, like previous updates, and also includes Last.fm and Zune video compatibility. “What are you doing?” “Losing to 12-year-olds in Modern Warfare 2 over and over again! Not fun.”

Fair warning to those of you who play your modded Xbox 360 on Xbox Live: Microsoft is breaking out the ban hammer. Again.

As I cleverly remarked in the official CrunchGear chat room, that a video game leaks a few days before its release is par for the course. When the biggest video game of the year leaks a full week before its release date, it’s worth noting. So that’s what I’m doing right now: Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 has leaked. It’s available where you usually find such things.

There’s two new Xbox 360 bundles coming your way, UK. To mark the arrival of Transformers 2 and Star Trek to DVD (and Blu-ray), Gem and Paramount pictures have put together these blurry bundles.

Maybe I’m speaking for the minority here, but I have to get this off my chest: Project Natal is sorta “meh,” no? I attended Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awards for a few minutes last night, and they had on display Project Natal. It was that paint-throwing game. Now, I know that’s just a tech demo, but I left feeling a little concerned about its future.

While I’m sure many of you hang onto Major Nelson’s every word, you might have missed these new holiday bundles that Microsoft is cooking up. There’s the Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle, and the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller Game Pack. What do these bundles contain????

Questing in Kalimdor, I received word that, yes, the Wii has dropped in price to $199. After I logged out, I got to thinking: how long can this last? Like, the Wii (and the PS3) came out three years ago, and the Xbox 360 came out four years ago. Given how quickly consumer electronics evolve, how long we can expect to play these systems?

So, this is what that Halo anime series, Halo Legends, looks like. It needs to be said that my knowledge of anime is more or less non-existent (I saw Akira once when I was around 16-years-old. It didn’t change my life.), so pardon my inability to critique it with any degree of competence.

Was it the PS2 or PS3 that was banned from Iraq because of fears that Saddam Hussein’s regime would co-opt the system for nefarious ends? Or maybe I made that up? It doesn’t matter. The point is that, yeah, your favorite video game system (well, maybe not the Wii) is pretty damn powerful little computer. So powerful, in fact, that it can be used rather effectively by doctors and researchers.