Microsoft Points are an oft-hated system by many gamers. Many have called for an end to the system and a move to a simpler purchasing system like PlayStation Network has. Most just want buy what they want with real money, not some fake currency where they are forced to spend more than they want when items don't fit within multiples of $5.

If rumors are to be believed apparently Microsoft, too, has grown tired of Microsoft Points. InsideMobileApps is reporting a source has told them that Microsoft Points are set to be phased out by the end of 2012. By then all purchases will be made with real money based on the region of the account. In addition to changing how Xbox Live will work this will also affect the Zune Marketplace and Windows Phone.

Microsoft has yet to confirm the validity of this rumor so we'll have to see how it goes. Personally I don't see why they can't just allow both real money and Microsoft Points to co-exist. They already allow you to purchase Games on Demand using a credit card, it can't be that hard to extend that to other areas.

I have some good news, some bad news and some worse news for fans of Modern Warfare 3.The good news: two new maps have just been released for download. The bad news: these maps are available only to subscribers to Call of Duty Elite. The worse news: if you are a paid subscriber but play on PlayStation 3, you'll have to wait.

If you match the requirements set by Activision then today you can get your hands on the two new maps: Liberation and Piazza. To download your new maps just fire up Modern Warfare 3 and get them from the "Download Elite Content" section inside the in-game store. You can then play the maps in a special Elite-only playlist.

These first two maps are just the beginning of Activision's planned 20 content drops for Elite members over the next year. PlayStation 3 Elite subscribers can expect these two maps at a later date. Non-subscribers will see these maps folded into a normal downloadable map pack once Activision has enough maps to create one.

A couple weeks ago Microsoft announced the titles that would be released for their spring Xbox Live Arcade promotion, House Party. The four games are Warp, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Nexuiz and I Am Alive. Today they have announced the price for each game and when they will release:

• February 15 - Warp (800 Microsoft Points)
• February 22 - Alan Wake's American Nightmare (1,200 MSP)
• February 29 - Nexuiz (800 MSP)
• March 7 - I Am Alive (1,200 MSP)

So you know that Xbox 360 Dashboard Update you've been waiting for? You know, the one scheduled to release today that redesigns the entire dashboard to be used with Kinect, adds beacons to set up gameplay schedules with friends, adds Bing search functionality and lays the foundation for Microsoft's LIVE TV service? Yeah, that one. Seems you might have to wait a little longer for it.

Larry Hryb, Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson, tweeted this a couple hours ago:

FYI: The timing for Xbox 360 dashboard update has been slightly delayed. I'll have a status update later today

Here's hoping that 'delay' refers to just hours instead of days. We will keep you posted when we learn more.

[UPDATE: 7:45 PM EST] Good news to report. Whatever was hanging up the Dashboard Update seems to have been resolved. Larry Hryb has was again taken to Twitter to confirm that it should begin rolling out within the next few hours.

With Black Friday behind us, it's time to focus on scoring a deal from the comfort of your living room. Amazon is starting its Cyber Monday deals one day early this year. Starting tomorrow, the online retailer will begin rolling out the deals on everything from cameras, toys and even vacuums. There is one nice deal for us videogame enthusiasts.

Amazon will be selling the Xbox 360 250 GB Holiday Bundle for $199. That's a savings of $100. The Holiday Bundle includes:

• Xbox 360 S Console
• Fable III
• Halo Reach (download code)
• Xbox 360 250GB Hard Drive
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
• Xbox 360 Headset
• 3 Month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership

Click here for the full press release (you know you need a new vacuum too) or click here for the direct link to the Holiday Bundle product page.

.Tomorrow was supposed to be the release date for Gears of War 3's first DLC pack. It now looks like fans will have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the Horde Command Pack.

The following message was posted on the Epic Games Forums by Epic Games' Community Manager, Raczilla.

The scheduled Horde Command Pack release for Gears of War 3 is temporarily delayed due to a technical issue. We apologize to those of you who are anxiously awaiting to play. We know this is disappointing news as we've seen a lot of posts today showing excitement for this content. We have folks working around the clock to resolve this issue ASAP so you can all play and enjoy the Command Pack.The Epic Games Community team will stick around and keep you posted with any further information. Stay tuned for updates!

The Horde Command Pack will include three new maps, three new playable characters, two new weapon skins and additional achievements worth 250 Gamerscore. It will be available for FREE to owners of the Gears of War 3 Season Pass or for 800 Microsoft Points.

It is unclear at the moment just how long the delay will be. Here's hoping that it last hours or days instead of weeks. Stay tuned to the Epic Games Forums for more information.

[UPDATE] Good news to report. The delay only lasted about eight hours. The Horde Command Pack is now available to download. Not too shabby Epic.

The first piece of downloadable content for Gears of Ware 3, the Horde Command Pack, hasn't even been released yet and already we have news of the next add-on for Epic's big game. This new pack is going to be campaign-centric as well as offering some gun skins and multiplayer characters. If you're upset that we still haven't seen any competitive multiplayer announcements, Epic's Rod Ferguson has promised news on that front come November 1.

RAAM's Shadow is set as a prequel to the original Gears of War and features Zeta Squad, featuring series veterans Minh Young Kim from Gears 1, Tai Kaliso from Gears 2 and Michael Barrick from the novels. It also introduces Alicia Valera, no doubt the character that Aisha Tyler is voicing. The DLC will also allow you to play as RAAM himself in the campaign.

RAAM's Shadow is promised to deliver over three hours of gameplay. On top of the campaign mission will also come the Chocolate Weapon Set and six new multiplayer characters. Those who appreciate boosting up their Gamerscore will also be happy to hear that it included new achievements worth 250 points.

RAAM's Shadow is launching on December 13 and will cost 1200 Microsoft Points. It is also included in the Gears of War 3 Season Pass.

We know that most Xbox 360 gamers will probably be playing Gears of War 3 next week. If you're one of those gamers that doesn't have any interest in Gears (shame on you) or one that needs a break, Clear Channel and Xbox 360 are teaming up to bring you an alternative entertainment fix.

The iHeart Radio Music Festival will be steamed exclusively in HD over Xbox Live on September 23-24. The festival will be taking place in Las Vegas and will include performances by Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Coldplay, Kenny Chesney, The Black Eyed Peas, Steven Tyler, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Carrie Underwood, Jane's Addiction, Nicki Minaj, John Mayer, David Guetta, Rascal Flatts, Bruno Mars, Sublime with Rome, Kelly Clarkson, Usher, Sting and Jeff Beck.

Xbox LIVE members can access the show by selecting the stream on the dashboard.

Continue reading after the break for the full press release.

We are just over one week away from the release of Gears of War 3 on September 20th. I thought this would be the perfect time to help out all my fellow Gears fans with some information on how to unlock any last minute characters and weapon skins for use in multiplayer, horde and beast modes.

Some unlocks are(were) time sensitive, need to be purchased, can be unlocked by playing the previous games in the franchise or are available by pre-ordering Gears 3 from a specific retailer. Some can be unlocked just by playing Gears of War 3. There are even some that we still don't exactly know how to unlock at the moment.

Continue reading after the break for what we know at the moment.

Ryan Payton, one of Halo 4's creative directors, has not only quit the project but has also left developer 343 Industries to create a new studio called Camouflaj. Payton, who was also part of the development team for Metal Gear Solid 4, explained to Kotaku that he wasn't "creatively excited" about the game anymore.

"I had a great run at Microsoft. I don't regret one day of it. But after a few years, there came a point where I wasn't creatively excited about the project anymore. The Halo I wanted to build was fundamentally different and I don't think I had built enough credibility to see such a crazy endeavor through," he continued. "For somebody who loves this industry as much as I do and knows how lucky I've been, I never thought I'd get to a point where I was so drained. That was when I knew I had to do something else."

Payton went on to clarify that Halo 4 is not turning out bad. Its just not the Halo that he wanted to make.

Does this leave anyone worried about the direction of the new Halo trilogy? Get to discussing.

One of the most popular multiplayer maps from Gear of War and Gears of War 2 is making a return this September. Epic Games has confirmed that Gridlock will indeed be included in Gears of War 3.

Gridlock will be modified and revamped with new weapon spawns and of course new graphics. This enhanced version will also be set "in the eerie darkness of night" this time around.

Epic also announced that Gears 3 will feature a Casual Versus Multiplayer playlist. Perfect for Gears noobs to get the hang of all the rolling around and shotgun battles that will ensue once they're ready for the Ranked Multiplayer playlist.

Continue after the break for the complete list of Gears 3 maps and their descriptions.

For the tenth anniversary of the original Halo, 343 Industries is putting out a remake of Combat Evolved this fall. While rumored for quite a long time, the game was formally shown off at E3 a couple weeks ago. We learned about plenty of cool features like redone visuals and online co-op but today we got one more interesting tidbit. In an interview with Gamespot, Microsoft Game Studios General Manager Phil Spencer was discussing how important Kinect was in all genres and even went as far as to, perhaps accidentally, announce that "even games like Halo Anniversary has Kinect integration."

Now at this point it's very unclear what the Kinect support will entail but 343 Industries Community Manager Jessica Shea was quick to address any fears gamers might have: "The Kinect features we're exploring with Halo: Anniversary are optional and won't affect your core gameplay experience. Our mission, from day one, has been to deliver a faithful recreation of the original game, and we remain dedicated to seeing that through to completion."

It's nice to see Microsoft embracing Kinect with their first party titles in a way that doesn't abandon their core demographic. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is set to release on November 15.

The brand new reboot of Mortal Kombat has received a lot of praise and like any good game it is going to be the subject of various pieces of downloadable content. Four brand new playable characters are planned to be added to the game and today Warner Bros. revealed the Mortal Kombat Season Pass. This new item will allow gamers to pre-purchase the DLC for Mortal Kombat is a similar way to L.A. Noire's recent Rockstar Pass.

Each character will cost 400 Microsoft Points but by purchasing the Season Pass you will get all four new characters for only 1200 Points, essentially giving you a character for free. The Season Pass is surprisingly only available on Xbox 360 but PlayStation 3 owners can simply purchase the characters as they are released. The planned characters are Skarlet, Kenshi and Rain with a fourth, unannounced character in the works. These new Kombatants have full move sets and fatalities as well a ladder arcade story ending.

Both the Season Pass and Skarlet will be available on June 21. If you purchase the Season Pass the new characters will automatically be added when they are released. Warner Bros. also announced a free compatibility pack that will launch with each DLC character that will include two new "Klassic" skins. The first pack will include alternate outfits for Cyrax and Sektor.

The Gears of War 3 Limited Edition Xbox 360 is a reality.

This slim, red beauty will cost $399 and release alongside other versions of the game on September 20. The console will feature special sound effects, comes with a 320 GB hard-drive, two custom controllers, a standard version of Gears of War 3, a headset and two pieces of DLC: an extra multiplayer character skin (Adam Fenix) and the Infected Omen Weapon Pack skins for the game's five starting weapons.

The custom controllers will be available separately for $59 on August 11 and will contain the the two aforementioned DLC codes as well as the new transformable d-pad.

Just when you thought you had your mind made on which version of Gears of War 3 you would be buying, leave it to Microsoft and Epic to throw out another option. Let us know if this limited edition console will be finding a place in your gaming setup in the comments below.

Microsoft spent a small amount of time during their press conference to show some of the new features coming to the Xbox Live service. Major Nelson has now revealed more information about what types of cool features that we'll be seeing on Xbox Live.

The biggest new feature for many is that Xbox Live will be getting cloud support. "Gone are the days of gamertag recovery.” Not only will you be able to get your profile from the cloud but you can also choose to store your game saves online as well.

Microsoft is also bringing a new Bing search feature to Xbox. This feature is integrated with an all new focus on voice commands and allows users to search for anything on their Xbox 360. Bing will search through Hulu Plus, Netflix, ESPN as well as the Xbox Marketplace and Zune. Searching for something like "X-Men" will bring up the games, movies and even the animated series.

Another interesting feature coming to Xbox Live is a system called Beacons. Using Beacons allows you to let your friends online know that you are interested in playing a certain game, no matter what you're doing. "Imagine sending out a Beacon to let your friends know you’re interested in playing Halo, while watching a movie on Netflix."

The last big feature coming to Xbox Live is full YouTube support. With millions of videos like walkthroughs, music videos or things like Keyboard Cat, it's a cool feature to see added onto Xbox. Let's just hope that it breaks away from other apps and allows you to use it while in-game.

They didn't say when any of these features will be coming to Xbox Live but I think it's safe to say we won't see anything until at least this Fall.