Sony started sending out emails to a few lucky members of the PlayStation Underground the past few days to sign up for the first limited beta test of the new Home service for the PS3.

You must have a valid US PlayStation Network ID to sign up. Basically, if you didn’t get an email, you’re SOL for now. There will be a larger, open beta period later this summer.

A new video of the Halo 3 beta leaked today, showing the new map Zanzibar. Looks pretty damn cool. Can’t wait to play this on May 16th.

So we all know by now that the Halo 3 beta is coming in May. Bungie today released a new video documentary about the making of Halo 3’s multiplayer. It’s also available from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Check it out…

Get ready to dust off your copies of Crackdown ladies and gents because Bungie just announced the Multiplayer beta will go live as of May 16th at 12:00 AM PDT and run through June 6th at 11:59 PM PDT. Here are some of the new things you will get a chance to test:

• The Beta itself consists of three maps – Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound – graphically improved since our first MP screenshots – and all three will be playable in Matchmaking only (that is after all, what we’re Beta testing here). All three maps are suitable for a wide variety of gameplay types, and you will have the chance to try all manner of game types, familiar and new.
• There are a number of new features you’ll get to test out – including a new grenade type, a completely different class of weapon and some of the enhanced online functionality we plan to bring to the game – but it should be noted, a lot of secret features are hidden in this Beta. We’re keeping a lot of our powder dry for Fall. In May, when your firing the Spiker, sniping vehicles with the Spartan Laser and sticking fools with the Brute Spike grenade, remember that it’s just a peek-a-boo fraction of what’s to come.
• There will also be new guns, vehicles and gameplay features to try – including the mysterious “X-Button” functionality.

Frankie of Bungie does warn us though that this is just a beta and will have “quirks”, so if your Master Chief can walk through walls now, don’t think that is a new feature. Enjoy!

So today Microsoft lifted the NDA on the Shadowrun Beta, so I figured I’d give you my impressions of the game in it’s current state.

The beta is online multiplayer on Xbox 360 only (no cross-platform play yet). There’s a lot too the game. It’s not just your typical first person shooter. You have to master hover jumps, teleporting, spells, etc. Lucky, there’s some pretty good tutorials to help you out with this.

The game is really fun. Let’s just start there. The learning curve is steep, but once you get into it, it’s a blast. I love that it’s not just run and gun. You can use your magic to see people through walls, teleport through and snipe them from behind without them even knowing. There’s some glitches, but that’s expected in a beta. The Shadowrun team has been great with keeping up with it all, sending out regular newsletters to those involved.

I think this game is going to be terrific once it’s released at retail. The beta test has convinced me to buy the game.

Hopefully the Halo 3 Beta goes as smooth and the game is as fun to play.

I figured with St. Patty’s Day coming, the luck of my ancestors might shine in my direction. Alas, no. Xbox 360 #5 died this morning. She was only a little over a week old. I’ve gotten 10 disc read errors in the past 2 days in 4 games. Crackdown, Lego Star Wars, and Gears wouldn’t even load up. MLB 2K7 loads, but I get disc errors halfway through the games. Ugh. Looks like this is going back to Best Buy today for Xbox 360 #6.

There’s WAY too many stories of people having gone through multiple 360’s. I don’t know a single person still on their first. 3-5% failure rate my ass!

I came across a quote from Bungie that I thought was hilarious, they pretty much told everyone that the Halo 3 beta was not going to launch with Crackdown and would be ready no earlier than the Spring. A lot of the hype over getting Crackdown was to get into the Halo 3 beta that isn’t even ready now, but may come out in a few months. I give the marketing guys at MS a gold star though for padding their sales of Crackdown units by including the prospect of a Halo 3 beta, well played gentleman, well played. I think next MS should make a shitty game and just put a big Halo 3 sticker on the box, should sell over a million copies easy.

Xbox Live will be down starting at 2am PST (that’s 5am EST for all you math majors out there). It “should” only be down for 3 hours, but we all know how that goes. I find it odd that it’s going down the day Crackdown is coming out at retail, which is such a huge release because of the Halo 3 Beta (not to mention the fact that it’s a great game).

So if you wanted to play into the wee hours of the morning, you’re shit out of luck. Get some sleep and play some Crackdown tomorrow.

It’s worth it to note that there will be NO new features on the 360 Dashboard, Live, or xbox.com. This is just server maintenance, as confirmed by Major Nelson.

So, today, after a semi-long gaming session with my 360 (about 4 hours), she decided it was time to go to the big pie in the sky. I’ve been hit with the 3 red lights on my 360. No, this isn’t the first time. It’s not the second either. HELL, it’s not even the third. This is my 4th fucking Xbox 360 to die. Seriously, this is out of control. My 360 is housed in it’s own shelf in my entertainment center, with ample air flow. The power brick is also housed there, separated nicely, also with a lot of airflow. Everything is run through a Monster Power Center with Voltage Regulator. So there’s absolutely no issues with power or air flow causing these fucking things to die.

I honestly don’t know a single person who still has their launch 360. I know there’s a lot of people that do, but no one on my friends list or anyone I’ve personally spoken to have their original box. This 3-5% failure rate Microsoft is talking about is bullshit.

Thankfully I got the Best Buy warranty when I had to buy another 360 (my first died after the 90 days, and well before they upped the factory warranty to 1 year). I’ll be taking this one in tomorrow to swap it out.

I’ve never seen consoles die like this. My PS3 and Wii see about as much gaming as my 360, and they’re running strong. My launch PS2 and launch Xbox (v1) are still running strong. The 360 has some serious hardware issues. I’m willing to bet Microsoft never acknowledges it. Hopefully the Zephyr will resolve a lot of the issues, but I doubt it. Microsoft has a terrific track record of not doing any QA work on their products.

My friend puma81 decided he had had enough. He was tired of the countless phone calls, the lies from support that a supervisor would call him back, and worst of all, the thought that the defective wireless headset he had sent in over a week ago was going mia.

He did some searching and came up with this:

Jabil Circuit Inc
5700 South International Parkway
McAllen, Texas, 78503-8931
Phone: 956-683-0698

Whats THIS?! A PHONE NUMBER!? Yes, that’s right, and FREE OF CHARGE!. Puma was able to find that elusive phone number for the McAllen service center. He told me a guy named “Girdy” answered the line, and so he asked for door #18 (microsofts section of the warehouse), and was promptly transferred. The next voice he heard was that of a microsoft employee…

“Microsoft” the guy answered… Puma then told him about how he had paid out of pocket to ship in his defective headset, and how he was getting the typical run around from the lame and useless outsourced tech support line.

Puma was then informed that there are new headsets, a new hardware revision that is coming soon, and they were holding off on shipping out a replacement for him until that revision was in stock. Whether or not they have been shipping out these new revisions, or whether or not they actually fix the COUNTLESS problems with the headsets remains to be seen… but at least everyone now has a good starting point if they are getting nowhere fast with 360 tech support.