Microsoft's E3 briefing will air on Spike, Facebook and in HD VOD on Xbox Live

A few years ago we were happy just to get a few trailers in high definition from the E3 videogames conference on our Xbox 360s, but this year Microsoft and Spike TV have teamed up to bring the company's entire briefing in HD (via video on-demand) to the console. It will air live on Spike TV June 6th at 12:30 p.m. ET, with streams also available on GameTrailers.com (in high definition), Facebook, MTV.com, Spike.com and Xbox.com as well as being broadcast in Times Square. You can bet we'll be back to liveblog the proceedings yet again but if you want to get your own eyeful of Xbox 360: The Future Revealed (hint: Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4 and Kinect) there will be plenty of ways to do it.

Joystiq

Spike

Some Xbox 360s won't read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL

There may have been a good reason for that wide beta test Microsoft ran to test out its new disc format for the Xbox 360. While it will allow for an extra 1GB of storage space for new games and (it hopes) stop piracy, apparently some consoles contain drives that cannot read the new XGD3 discs. The details can be seen in the email pictured above posted by Reddit user Avery Penn and were verified as real by the Xbox Support Twitter account, but now it's responding to inquiries by saying that the replacements are in response to a previous update, and not the upcoming one that has been in beta. Confusingly, Microsoft Europe confirmed the initial report and points affected users towards the support page. One way or another, affected owners can expect to be mollified by getting their Xbox 360s replaced with new 250GB Xbox 360S models plus a free year of XBL for the trouble. We haven't gotten an official response about the plan yet but are still checking, so your plan to hoard old consoles and get free replacements en masse is probably equal parts premature and Seinfeldian genius.

Joystiq, Eurogamer, Kotaku

Reddit