Gamers have been waiting for this announcement for who the hell knows how long. It seems that the possibility of a portable Xbox 360 is all but officially confirmed. Peripheral company, Hori, prematurely announced their release of a no-hassle Compact TFT Monitor EX, an LCD that easily connects to the Xbox 360 with very minimal effort.

The 12.1 inch monitor is no small fry with an output of 720p. It will involve you to have some kind of bag that can hold both the screen and the Xbox. But the point is, you don’t have to lug around a TV or full-sized monitor. The display will cost you 36,750 yen ($309.34), in addition to the hundreds you’ve already shelled out for the Xbox 360. Expected to be available in July for Japan. — Andrew Dobrow

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Some geek out there really doesn’t want us to buy an Xbox 360, and they aren’t afraid to throw it in our faces either. While one of the game store owners was distracted, over-zealous gamer Dustin Wilson took a white marker and wrote the words “Buy a Wii instead!” on the three Xbox display boxes in the window of the store.

The antic is an entry to the EvWiiWhere Challenge, a contest for Wii fans to show the word Wii spelled out in unconventional ways. The vandalism of the 360 box seems a little immature for our tastes. But who knows. Those Xbox boxes in question could be worth a lot more now. We’re sure Miyamoto is thrilled with these fanboy antics. — Andrew Dobrow

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Nothing is ever concrete until you see it in this world of Photoshop renderings. Now that we can see the recently announced Xbox 360 QWERTY Controller in the wild, we can offer a full confirmation on Microsoft’s announcement. This is the first public viewing of the QWERTY text input device for Xbox.

The announcement coincides with Microsoft’s announcement that MSN Messenger will soon be available from the Xbox dashboard. The controller will allow for easy text input without the need of a full keyboard. (more…)

With the announcement that MSN Messenger will now be integrated into the Xbox 360 dashboard, Microsoft has also announced a QWERTY controller for hassle-free text input for the chat program. The 47-keyed controller plugs into the normal controller via the headphone jack. While it might be a little clunky looking, it sure as hell beats having to lug a full keyboard around.

The Microsoft dashboard update, which will take place on May 7, will allow up to six chat windows to be open in addition to the normal events. The only thing released about this controller yet is the photos so no pricing, availability, or even product name info is available yet. (more…)

Being the renaissance men that we are, we hardly need to play a guitar-based game, seeing as we can play real classical guitar, while pleasing three women at the same time. For those who aren’t as multi-talented, Harmonix and EA announced in a conference call that the guitar controller for Xbox 360 from Guitar Hero will also work with the recently announced Rock Band game.

Gamers using a PS3 will have to buy a new controller unless an adapter is released. But come on, there’s adapters for everything these days. — Andrew Dobrow

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Thanks to an early shipment of Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360, there’s now hard evidence to confirm that Guitar Hero is adding the use of an effect pedal to the game. A diagram of the guitar controller in the 360 instructions shows a plotted port for an effect pedal. Before you get your gaming panties in a knot, take warning that Konami has been known to add mysterious effect ports to music games in the past without anything to show for it, which they did for Beatmania III.

On the back of this instruction slip, the effect port is labled as still being unavailable for now, as can be seen by the lack of hardware. But Konami might just have something up their sleeves. — Andrew Dobrow

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According to Peter Moore, head of the Interactive Entertainment Business division of Microsoft (pictured above), the production team of the Xbox 360 is already working on the follow-up for the popular gaming console. Moore says that Microsoft is looking into what processors will be available around 2011-2012, a sign that this will be around the time of the next 360 release.

Could we be looking at the Xbox 750? With terrabyte technology? The thought is exhilarating, yet very unknown as of now. This would put the life of Xbox 360 at about 6-7 years, much longer then the Xbox’s 4 years of fame. Though, with Gears of War and Halo brand building up suspense for upcoming releases, while still working on the fame of former releases, the Xbox 360 might continue to sell well for the next few upcoming years. Will Moore now get a tattoo advertising this too? — Andrew Dobrow

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Publishing company Take Two has confirmed in a financial results conference call that the eagerly awaited Grand Theft Auto IV will be released in October of this year. Following the record breaking sales of GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto IV will no doubt be just as big or bigger of a success then the previous two major releases in the series.

Take Two and Rockstar have also confirmed that in 2008, exclusive episodic content downloads for the new GTA will become available. In 2006, Microsoft announced a deal with Rockstar to have exclusive downloads for its Xbox 360. Grand Theft Auto IV is planned to ship for both Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously. — Andrew Dobrow

GTA IV: October Release Confirmed, Episodes coming in 2008 [Team Xbox]

Sources say that the answer to a noisy 360 system is coming soon and is in fact already running as an upgrade on some systems. The software update was supposedly sent out to journalists to test with their debugging console. This update is said to reduce the noise from the disk reader of the Xbox 360.

Depending on how this software fixes the problem, there might be some adverse effects. If the upgrade reduces the drive speed, this can result in longer load times and very frustrated gamers. Is a longer load time worth the noise reduction? Would it be better just to ignore the update? Will the update ever be official? More as it comes. — Andrew Dobrow

Rumor: Quieter 360 via Software Update [GWN]

Microsoft can’t cut themselves a break these last few days. They haven’t really been doing a good job of helping that fact either. In this preview screenshot from the recently announced UEFA Xbox 360 game, an add for the Playstation 3 can be plainly seen in the background.

Microsoft probably should of scoped out the UEFA’s sponsers before signing on for a video game deal, which include both Sony and the Playstation brand. Sony is getting a pretty nice deal with this game. Though I’m sure they would rather have people buy their games then to have their name seen in a Microsoft game. — Andrew Dobrow

Playstation 3 advert appears in Xbox 360 [360 gamer, via Joystiq]