The PAX Prime game festival is just around the corner - taking place in Seattle from 26 - 28 August. There’s sure to be some new game announcements at the event, and one of those titles has already been unintentionally revealed by none other than Xbox Live’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb.

Writing on his blog he let slip that Sonic CD will be playable at booth #432 during PAX.

This is sufficient evidence that Sonic CD will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade in the near future, and Sega have responded to queries on the matter by saying that they’ll “be sharing some more information soon”.

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We all know by now that Twisted Pixel’s latest downloadable title for Xbox LIVE Arcade, Comic Jumper, has been unleashed onto the Marketplace, and is currently earning an enormous amount of ‘Internet Kudos’ and positive buzz thanks to the game’s sharp humour, great characters, and fantastic environments, action and situations.

But if there’s one guy that won’t rest until everybody on Xbox LIVE Marketplace knows about Comic Jumper, it’s Xbox frontman Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb, and in the Inside Xbox video below, Nelson shows you just how far he’s willing to go in the name of Twisted Pixel’s awesome new game.

Watch ‘Nelson’ run for his life in an attempt to escape real life BradBots, as ‘he’ climbs over tables, wall-runs, dupes an unwitting bystander into becoming a diversion, and more.

A brilliant, excellently humorous video, which should be watched by you… now:

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According to a Twitter post by Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb, the Xbox LIVE Arcade version of Rare’s classic N64 first-person shooter, Perfect Dark, will be arriving on Xbox LIVE Marketplace “in a few months.” From his tweet:

“For those asking: Perfect Dark Zero will be coming to Arcade in a few months. That’s all the info I have.”

Even though Major Nelson did say Perfect Dark Zero (the Xbox 360 game), he later noticed his mistake and tweeted:

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Oh dear, here we go again…

Microsoft’s big Kahuna, Steve Ballmer, has once again made comments that have caused some confusion amongst the Xbox 360 fan constituency, this time regarding the availability of Blu-Ray accessories for the company’s line of products, which many console followers took to mean that Blu-Ray players would be made available for the Xbox 360.

If it were true, this would be a major turn of events for the future of the Xbox 360, after the HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray format war resulted in Blu-Ray becoming the preferred disc format going forward, meaning Microsoft’s investment in HD-DVD was a case of betting the wrong horse, making the manufacture of the extra, external Xbox 360 HD-DVD drives a poor choice over the option of providing a Blu-Ray offering instead.

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Microsoft’s Xbox Live Director of Programming, Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson), has revealed that he will also be one of the many folk around the world picking up a copy of Naughty Dog’s PS3 exclusive adventure Uncharted 2: Among Thieves this week.

The Major updated his Twitter account with the following: “I’ll have to pick up UnCharted 2 this week. It’s being very well received. Congrats to @Naughty_Dog on a job well done!”

Kudos to the Major for saying job well done to Naughty Dog.

Source: Twitter

Have your signed onto the New Xbox Experience yet? Taken in the sights, fiddled with settings, customised your avatar?

Well, if you have, you’re one of the millions of Xbox 360 owners that have contributed to NXE’s apparently excellent launch so far, as the statistics below will reveal.

In a post on his blog, Major Nelson broke down a few of NXE’s (and Xbox LIVE in general) achievements so far, including increases in activity and XBLA game sales that are sure to put a smile on Microsoft’s… ‘face.’

The released New Xbox Experience stats follow below:

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Major Nelson, the Xbox mouthpiece, has posted his Top Ten list for things to do on the New Xbox Experience when it’s officially unleashed into the world later today, complete with hints and bonus tips. What’s the first thing on the list?

“1) Create (or Customize) your Avatar - You can spend as much (or as little) time as you want in the Avatar Editor to personalize your little guy/girl

Bonus: When you are done with #1, be sure to take a Gamer Picture of your Avatar. In the Avatar editor, choose Gamer Picture. You can use the controls to move your avatar around, zoom in and out or even change the background color (press Y).”

Thanks Major! The full list can be viewed on his blog, which includes activities such as exploring the dashboard, installing games to the hard drive, checking out the new marketplace and ‘PAR-TAY!’ His words.

Unless you’ve been submerged at the bottom of the ocean, in a locked coffin, buried deep in the sand beneath a giant reef, you’d know that the New Xbox Experience launches today, November 19th, bringing with it a host of new features and generally making the Xbox LIVE experience that much smoother.

According to the good ‘ole Major Nelson (is he even that old?), Xbox LIVE will be down for some routine maintenance, following some turbulence experienced by the service over the weekend. Was this due to the New Xbox Experience Beta? From the Major:

“On Monday, 11/17/2008 from 2:00 AM PST for up to 45–minutes, Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions.”

“This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available this Wednesday.”

If our calculations are correct, that’s 10:00 am GMT. How’s the weather in your part of the world?

Major Nelson, the individual now synonymous with Xbox and Xbox LIVE, has a special note for everybody:

“Ok, you can stop finding things to keep you busy…LIVE is back. I am happy to report that the Xbox Live Maintenance is now complete which means that Xbox LIVE is back online, and you can now resume posting in the Xbox forums. Thanks again for your patience during this maintenance.”

In honour of LIVE going live again, he has also released the LIVE activity ratings, which is a handy way of knowing just what games are being played on the service and what’s proving to be popular in the world of online Xbox gaming. This week? Halo 3, in its long, hard-fought battle for supremacy against the equally outstanding Call of Duty 4, has proven itself victorious, ending up at No. 1 this week. Next week though? Who knows.

Click on through for the full listing for the week of September 22nd:

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Just in case anyone was wondering, the Xbox LIVE service is currently down for some routine maintenance. A note from Major Nelson:

“As I mentioned earlier in the week, tomorrow (Monday, 9/29/2008) from 12:01 AM PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions. When the service returns, you will not have any new features and you will not have the new Xbox experience update. That will happen later this Fall. I will update my Twitter when the service returns.”

Surely there are other things you could be doing while you wait? Surely? Hint: How’s the weather in your part of the world?