A bunch of new rumors regarding the future of Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade and first-party games are circulating the Internet, creating a lot of hype for next month’s E3. We thought we could report them and give our take.  
 
First, there’s a long post at MeriStation forums based on info obtained by lostroyanos.com, a Spanish Xbox Live fan site. Here, my Spanish skills come into play to assure you the most accurate translation. The first info that comes from that post claims the price of the Xbox 360 Premium Edition will drop €90 (that’s 110 USD) by the end of October, with the Core package being lowered €80 (100 USD).  
 
If this happens to be true, we expect those price drops to translate in the U.S. into a $100 price drop for both packages, resulting in an Xbox 360 Premium costing $299 and a Core package selling for as low as $199.  
 
We find hard to believe Microsoft will lower down the price of the Xbox 360 by almost a 30% a year after it launched its next-generation console but that will depend on the prices of the other next-generation consoles. In any case, Microsoft has two SKUs to compete with them but unless Microsoft already knows the prices of both Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution, there is no need for the software giant to lower the price of its console when they can’t yet meet demand and their major competitor’s next-gen console is rumored to cost far more than $400.  
 
The second item on that list of rumors claims Gears of War will launch in the last week of October, backed up by a huge worldwide marketing campaign. That doesn’t sound like a crazy rumor at all and it could be more of a smart prediction than an insider gossip. First, there’s the new Nov.1 release date that both EB and GameStop posted last week and second there’s the fact that Gears seems to be the only shooter that Microsoft has on their sleeves to counter attack the PlayStation 3 launch since nobody expect Halo 3 to arrive this year; which takes us to the next rumor.  
 
According to this gossip, Halo 3 won’t arrive until March, 2007 with an official announcement happening at next month’s E3. Again, this could certainly be true as everything sounds realistic. The insider also claims a sequel to Kameo is also in the works and that Microsoft is working to secure an exclusive of “an urban game”, which can be interpreted as the next GTA game.  
 
Now moving onto hardware peripherals, the post at MeriStation claims the HD DVD drive will cost approximately 95 euros (that’s 115 dollars) and it is scheduled for release next September. There is no mention of a HDMI cable and the post only mentions USB 2.0 connectivity with the console. With the first internal HD DVD drives for PC costing around $120, this rumors sound realistic too, although we think that a $150 price sounds more reasonable for an external HD DVD drive as the one the Xbox 360 will use.  
 
Next, the rumor claims a 100GB hard drive will be available as a peripheral but won’t replace the hard drive included with the Premium Edition. No release date or price is mentioned.  
 
Finally in what concerns to hardware peripherals, the Xbox 360 camera (referred in the post as the “My Eye On You” web cam) is rumored to launch in September with a price of 47 euros (58 dollars) or bundled with a game at 77 euros (95 dollars). We guess those would be games that make use of the camera features. These prices sound credible but with an Xbox 360 camera costing as much as a third-party game, there better be good games for this peripheral or it will sell less than the Nintendo 64DD…  
 
Regarding Xbox Live, the rumor claims Xbox Live Gold membership will drop in price or become totally free if the user agrees to see advertisements. This new model is supposed to roll out in October and for those users whose paid subscriptions are still valid, there will be an exchange program and a sort of ad-free version.  
 
We find this last rumor hard to believe and considering Sony’s decision to offer free online gameplay in the basic service, we’d expect Microsoft to liberate its Xbox Live Silver level membership with the inclusion of ads, with Xbox Live Gold users always enjoying an ad-free service.  
 
What we found realistic is the claim that Microsoft is working on expanding the Friends List to a maximum of 200 friends.  
 
Then the rumor goes onto saying that Microsoft will expand the list of backward compatibility games in June with the addition of 50 new titles. Once again, that sounds totally realistic.  
 
Then regarding exclusives, the report claims Microsoft has signed agreements with NBC for live game broadcasting, similar to the gaming TV in South Korea. The post also mentions the recent deals signed with Paramount Pictures and Epic Records.  
 
When it comes to the Xbox 360 dashboard, the report claims Microsoft will develop a new appearance for the dashboard as well as a special dashboard and Xbox Live for children. We don’t know what the insider means with a new appearance, because we don’t expect Microsoft to change the blade interface and there are already themes available for the dashboard, so an Xbox 360 dashboard for children shouldn’t require nothing more than a proper theme.  
 
The report also claims that you’ll be able to exchange certain game achievements for Microsoft Points and that sounds like a new incentive for users to play their games and definitely a smart move by Microsoft-- is this is real.  
 
There are other little claims that sound more like those horoscope forecasts. One says that the Xbox 360 will appear in two major Hollywood productions, similar to the cameo seen on The Island.; other mentions the much-wanted Download & Play feature that would finally let us download content while playing a game.  
 
Finally, another point in the list claims that a “virtual console” similar to the one Nintendo announced, will also launch this October, where SEGA games will be available for download and play.  
 
This last rumor takes us to a different site, Spong, which is also running an Xbox Live story claiming that Microsoft’s secret weapon to crash the launch of the Revolution and Nintendo’s virtual console will be a legal version of MAME. A Microsoft staffer would have revealed to Spong:  
 
"You've heard of MAME right? Right. We're just doing a legal version of MAME, meaning that all the game owners get paid and the users get quality product based around a community. Imagine the biggest arcade in the world, just 1,000 times bigger. It'll have as many machines as we can possibly get, all with score-rankings and other community stuff. It's not a secret that MAME was massive for hackers of the original Xbox and the pull and sales of retro game packs on current machines is still really high. If this is taken and put under the right noses, it should become the biggest thing in mainstream/hardcore gamer crossover in the industry."  
 
Unfortunately, Spong doesn’t enjoy much creditability when it comes to rumors and although the idea of MAME coming to Xbox 360 sounds like a dream come true, the problem with MAME legality is not with the emulator itself but with the ROMs. Then you also need to consider the fact that MAME commercial redistribution is prohibited as well as any commercial use of it, as stated in the MAME license.  
 
We don’t see the need of a MAME emulator when the current Xbox Live Arcade allows any past game to run in the Xbox 360 but we could be wrong and Spong be right. Time will tell.  
 
Like we said before, some of these rumors sound more like a forecast prediction while other are too hard to believe. In any case, these rumors should be taken with a grain salt and nothing is official until there’s an official announcement and you know you’ll hear first here on TeamXbox.com.