By Joel Barish As always, the list is life Major Nelson has posted the latest list of top games on Xbox Live. The man is keeping the new tradition of breaking up the list of Xbox 360 titles and original Xbox games. And sadly, there's still no actual numbers or specific data, but beggars can't be choosers. Xbox 360 Top Live Games: 1) Call Of Duty 2, 2) Ghost Recon 3, 3) Oblivion, 4) BFMC, 5) Final Fantasy XI, 6) PGR3, 7) EA SPORTS Fight Night Round 3, 8) Uno, 9) Perfect Dark Zero, and 10) DEAD OR ALIVE 4. Original Xbox Top Live Games: 1) Halo 2, 2)Battlefield 2: MC, 3) Counter-Strike, 4) Pro Evolution Soccer 5, 5) Splinter Cell Chaos, 6) Madden NFL 2006, 7) Rainbow Six 3 BA, 8) Star Wars: Battlefront 2, 9) Forza Motorsport and 10) Ghost Recon 2: SS. It'll be interesting to see whether the upcoming Xbox Live Vision camera is going to have any effect on the charts. Will Uno ever reach the top spot? And will Major Nelson ever going back to posting the title of Final Fantasy XI in Japanese? We'll have to keep checking back to find out once and for all.

By Craig Schwartz 40% to go? Lost Planet is one of those perfect games to show non-believers the power and beauty of the Xbox 360. But according to Capcom's Keiji Inafune, Lost Planet is merely scratching the surface of what the Xbox 360 is capable of. From an interview with Eurogamer: "We've probably only hit about 60 per cent of the Xbox 360's potential," says Keiji Inafune, reclining in a Bruce Campbell shirt up in Capcom's lofty meeting area, overlooking the throng of the E3 showfloor. Speaking to us through a translator, Inafune talks of his admiration for Microsoft's next-generation format and brushes off the suggestion, put forward by one of the handful of press joining us for a chat, that early titles haven't lived up to the pre-launch bluster. "It's very cyclical," he says of game development. "The more years you study a platform, the better you get. Some of the games you'll see in three of four years will be truly amazing."

By Nathan Bronfman Microsoft does the right thing A couple of days ago, we weren't exactly thrilled when Microsoft's Peter Moore was quoted as saying, "Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility." Let's face it, it was a foolish statement. And even though sometimes we criticize, we do it out of love. Thankfully, Microsoft is now projecting a different outward philosophy with quotes like, "We know for a fact that there are lots of people who continue to care about backwards compatibility..." Smart move, guys. It's nice to know that you truly are listening to what Xbox 360 gamers have to say and not taking us for granted. Here's the word from Gamescore Blog, a Microsoft employee group blog:Lots of talk about backwards compatibility online today. We wanted to get to the bottom of it all, so we went right to the team working on the next back compat update. We hear directly from them that they're in the testing phase of another update, and it should be out in the next few weeks. We saw the list they're testing, and it looks like they're hoping to add at least a dozen titles.

By Nathan Bronfman Outstanding! The limelight does not shine on the Xbox 360 as much as it ought to. What sin has the 360 committed? The sin of already being out; it's a known entity. Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii still have a few months of playing the mysterious dark horse role, and so people will continue to focus more on them. That's okay. After the Game Critics Awards, 95% of the headlines had to do with the Wii. But Microsoft games did quite well and picked up some major awards. Slow and steady wins the race, somebody much smarter than me once said. Here's the official bragging release from Microsoft: The critics have spoken, and Windows and Xbox 360 platforms continue to be the talk of the 12th annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), receiving half of the 16 total Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2006, awards distributed by an independent group of journalists from 37 leading North American media outlets that cover the video games industry.

By Craig Schwartz Not for the bundle-shy The question everybody with an Xbox 360 has been asking ever since we received an official release date for the Xbox Live Vision is...how much will it cost? Joystiq has unofficially officially found out the answer. What does that mean? It means it's an unofficial report based on a leak of "official" information. That hurts my head. It will come in bundled form, and bundled form only for the foreseeable future. The package includes an Xbox Live Vision camera with a wired headset, the popular Live Arcade title UNO, and a month of Live Gold service for $39.99 when it pops up in North America on September 19, 2006. What about the multitude of gamers who already playing Uno and have no desire to pay for the same game twice? That's a very good question. Hopefully, Microsoft won't force gamers to double dip and will offer a comparable game to download like Poker. After all, bundles are a great option to have, but only when it's an option.