Filed under: Peripherals

If you've been wanting to snag the Xbox 360 wireless adapter but unwilling to stomach the incredibly steep $99 price tag, we have good news. According to GamerDeals.net, Buy.com will be hosting a sale on the peripheral starting this Sunday, January 18 at midnight (PST) and ending January 25. The WiFi adapter price will be slashed by 30%, lowering the price to a (slightly) more palatable $69.99. Sure, it's still a far cry from what typical adapters cost, but it's certainly better.

If that doesn't float your boat, Buy.com will also be offering the red wireless controller bundle -- which includes a Play & Charge Kit -- for $42.99, a significant savings over the $64.99 suggested price. GamerDeals suspects the products will likely sell out quickly, and we're inclined to agree, so you might want to start warming up your clicking finger now.

Mad Catz has announced a new line of controllers and accessories designed especially with Street Fighter fans in mind. First up, the company has the FightPad, which features an arcade style six button layout and (blessedly) a floating eight-way D-pad. For more serious fighting fanatics, there is the FightStick an arcade style joystick with an eight button layout. For really serious fighting fans, there's the FightStick Tournament, which features authentic Sanwa parts. In fact, it uses the same parts found in actual Street Fighter IV arcade cabinets. As if that weren't enough, the design of the FightStick Tournament is being overseen by SFIV producer Yoshinori Ono himself. Also on offer will be a Street Fighter IV faceplate, wall scroll, and (ahem) Console Skinz.

All the Street Fighter IV Mad Catz products are scheduled to ship alongside the release of the game in February. No prices have been announced yet, which means we can still dream that the FightStick Tournament will be offered for the low, low price of free. Find a gallery of the new controllers below.

"It's not something we can do, obviously [the games would require a patch]. I mean, I hope so for Rock Band, Guitar Hero. It won't work out of the box but it's relatively easy to kind of get it going."

So, the light up Lips microphone and its compatibility with other musical titles lies in both Harmonix and Activision's hands. They'd have to release patches for their games which we think they totally should. Everyone pretty much agrees that the wireless Lips microphones are teh sexy and teh awesomez.

The 60GB HDD Live pack includes a 60GB hard drive, a 3 month subscription to Xbox Live, a wired headset and ethernet cable all for $99. Quite the steep price, but it works in terms of the console pricing between an Xbox 360 Arcade and Xbox 360 Pro. But we're not justifying the price and 100% agree that it's still way expensive.

[Thanks, therza2169]

"We have learned that certain drum kit controllers manufactured for Guitar Hero World Tour have sensitivity issues" starts the Activision statement claiming that it's an "isolated manufacturing issue" that occurred in the early manufacturing stages of production. Acti promises to further look into the borked drum kit problem and has plans to release a drum tuning kit that should optimize the drums and fix the sensitivity issues. For those of you who demand drum kit answers or some sort of alternative fix, you can contact Acti's online support or give them a call (U.S.) at 310-255-2050. Complete (apologetic) Activision statement after the break.

The bundle (which we're told has already rolled out to Walmart and Sam's Club stores) includes both a dragon themed 360 wireless controller and black wired headset for only $49. Not too shabby of a deal, especially if you were already in the market for both a controller and headset. You can view pictures of this "unique" controller in the gallery below and decide whether its white d-pad is aesthetically pleasing to your eye. But a candlestick phone? Really?


[Thanks, Terry W.]

Last week, Microsoft informed us that they'd be offering a "storage solution" to Xbox 360 Arcade and Core owners who didn't have 128MBs of storage to install the New Xbox Experience. We now have those storage solution specifics.

Microsoft just launched a new Xbox Storage Upgrade website where Arcade and Core owners can request their storage solution. All you have to do is enter your console's serial number and ID, then the system will check to make sure your console isn't an Elite or Pro. Some are reporting that the system knows if you have a HDD connected and will deny your storage upgrade, so be careful. Once your console is verified to be lacking 128MBs of storage, you'll be given a special offer based on which console you own. The storage solution offers are:

• Xbox 360 Acade owners: Refurbished 20GB HDD + 3 months of Xbox Live for $30.
• Xbox 360 Core owners: 512MB memory card for free OR refurbished 20GB HDD for $20

[Thanks, to everyone who sent this in]

Edge Online received a "Microsoft has no plans to introduce an Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on" comment from the MS folks, which puts it ever so bluntly that, again, no Blu-ray Xbox plans are in the works. Even more juicier is Microsoft product manager Aaron Greenberg's Blu-ray dissing, telling Major Nelson in an interview that "no one knows what Blu-ray will be. It's pretty clear it is not the next DVD, right? The days of one physical format being the standard are gone." Burn!

[Via Eurogamer]

[Thanks, Lightsout565]

That said, we don't have to tell you that $149 for a 120GB HDD is very spendy and, as GameDaily was keen to point out, you could technically plop down an extra $50 and buy a brand new 360 Arcade. True, you wouldn't get any additional storage capacity with the Arcade, but you'd have a 512MB 256MB memory card and a backup just in case your primary console decides to ring out.

You've been asking about it, you've been wondering when and at what price it'll release and now we may have an answer for you. The 60GB standalone Xbox 360 hard drive is rumored to release as a bundle for $99, maybe ...

According to the 1UP rumor mill, the 60GB HDD bundle was recently revealed to attendees of the GameStop Expo in Las Vegas (employees only, please). The bundle is said to include the 60GB HDD, a 3 month subscription to Xbox Live and an ethernet cable all for $99. Not horribly bad. But what also caught our eye is the other GameStop Expo rumor regarding a new 12 month Xbox Live bundle.The new bundle is pegged to include a year of Xbox Live, a copy of PGR4 and a 360 Messenger Kit for $69. Again, this is all gossipy rumor stuff, so don't get overly excited just yet.

[Via NeoGAF]

Word coming from the Leipzig Games Convention is that Microsoft has an Xbox 360 60GB HDD bundle planned for Europe and, relatively speaking, it's pretty decently priced.

A Microsoft produced flyer is making the internet rounds that was supposedly sent to Xbox Live Gold members in Germany. The flyer informs us of a new Xbox 360 Live 60GB HDD Starter Pack will release in November and will include the hard drive itself, a wired headset and three months of Xbox Live all for 79 Euros. Not too bad, seeing that a standalone 120GB HDD costs a whopping 129 Euros already. We aren't certain if this is an European exclusive offer or if it'll be sold in North America as well, but we'd totally welcome a cheaper 60GB HDD bundle. With open arms.

[Thanks, Sjeltur]

Update: D-pad rumors are cleared up and it looks like we aren't getting an improved d-pad anymore.

In rumor news coming straight from the Leipzig Games Convention floor, Eurogamer is reporting that Microsoft has plans to release new Xbox 360 controllers featuring a revised d-pad.

Eurogamer heard about the d-pad revision from a third party publisher who confirmed that the new controllers will look exactly like the current model, but with 32 direction support. We're also told that the Games Convention booth for Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer is using the new controller and Capcom's Street Fighter IV will supposedly support the new d-pad as well. Eurogamer posted pictures of the revised d-pad controller which is coincidentally the new green controller set to release next month. Does that mean the new green and red controllers are the rumored to be revised controller models with improved d-pads? We aren't exactly sure, so we'll wait for Microsoft to comment.

This E3, not only did we receive megaton Xbox 360 software announcements, but we also received two megaton peripheral announcements too. Well, not exactly megaton in scale, but there are two brand new controller colors hitting retailers later this September.

High resolution pictures of he red and blacked controller as well as the solid green wireless controllers (with matching battery packs) can be viewed in the gallery below. If you're a Gears of War 2 fanboy, then we say go with the red / black controller. If you're all about saving the Earth, then go green with the green controller. Then again, if you're all about saving the planet we wouldn't recommend purchasing a factory manufactured petroleum plastic based product. We'd feel dirty.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith recently released and we have Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 to look forward to later this year, meaning we're getting a bunch of brand new guitar peripherals. Take into account the older guitars from Guitar Hero II and III as well as the original Rock Band and you're left with a confusing instrument compatibility mess. Our head hurts just thinking about it. But team Joystiq has done their best to make sure you understand which guitar peripherals work with which games, breaking down the information into a convenient Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar compatibility matrix (version 2.0). Make the jump to view the complete matrix of guitar compatibility and be in complete peripheral compatibility awe and, possibly, complete compatibility disgust.