It’s been a huge news day for XBOX fanboys. The meat? Microsoft announces new HALO titles available exclusively for the XBOX 360.

HALO Wars is the next big real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires. Designed exclusively for the Xbox 360, “Halo Wars” allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective. It is being developed by Ensemble Studios. Go check out the HALO Wars website at http://halowars.com.

Peter Jackson was on hand at X06 to announce that he and Fran Walsh are creating two new interactive HALO series for the XBOX 360 and XBOX Live Arcade. It’s a brand new game based on the HALO intellectual property. For now, the will be little details about the type of game this series will be. Here’s hoping it’s a MMORPG.

Also, it appears the HD-DVD player for the XBOX 360 is going to be $200 in the US. That’s not a bad price and much lower that I thought it would be. But still, I’ve got to be convinced that I need one.

Head on over to XBOX.com for more details.

At the Tokyo Game Conference Microsoft announced their HD-DVD addon drive will be available in Japan on November 17th for about $200US. That's a killer price for an HD-DVD player. Here's hoping that we'll see that price here in the US.

However, I had to wonder why I would want to have that device. We don't watch many DVD's since we've got a new RAVE Movie Theatre, Comcast's VoD library, and an HD-DVR recording all kinds of content.

Will game developers start shipping their games on HD-DVD discs instead of DVD's? I think in time they will.

Microsoft just announced that a software update is headed toward your XBOX 360. The update will allow for 1080p video playback. The software update will allow non-1080p content to be upscaled to 1080p. Although no games currently are designed for 1080p, gaming at 1080p will happen in the future. Game developers can now start making games for 1080p playback. Unfortunately, I doubt that Bungie has Halo 3 ready for 1080p.

Most HDTV’s won’t do 1080p. However, 1080p sets are now hitting the market at near the same price at 1080i and 720p sets.

Microsoft have released the Zune. Is it an iPod-killer? Or is it something else? I'll write back after I get one. The final price: $229.99.

Lot's of Zune info here: http://www.zuneinsider.com/

Today Microsoft finally admitted that they are working on a killer portable music and entertainment device named "Zune". They've already got a viral marketing website (who doesn't) launched at http://www.comingzune.com/.

The device is set to be launched this year. Zune will be the device, the service, and the brand. Unfortunately, this thing is going to be restrictive when it comes to playing digital music. This device will not be be "PlaysForSure compliant" meaning DRM'd files could be in trouble.

The folks behind the XBOX 360 are on board to see the Zune project through. This is good news. It's likely we'll see tight integration with the Zune and the XBOX 360. They'll likely talk wirelessly.