A week from tomorrow is the release of Phantom Dust for the Xbox, a sci-fi action/combat game that will sell for $19.99. I was lucky enough to have some questions answered by the lead director, Yukio Futatsugi, who was eager to tell me what makes his game so special.

Shack: What's the story behind Phantom Dust and who is the main character? Yukio Futatsugi: It's a Sci-Fi genre combat game in a post-apocalypse world between warriors with psychic powers. The players, seeking the reason why their world is in ruins and why their memories have been lost, fight with other psychics and monsters. The surface of the earth is covered with particles referred to as "phantom dust", which has the power of erasing the memories of the people on earth. In place of losing their memory, people have gained "skills" that are the power of thought made concretely manifest. Earth is ruled by strange monsters, and the remaining people are living in hiding underground. The psychic warriors use the skills to fight with the monsters.

We don't usually single out console games but hey we are the first to bring you this unofficial gameplay video from Dead Man's Hand, the new Wild West shooter from Human Head Studios (Rune). The Windows Media Video format movie runs for four minutes showing various locations and characters. This Xbox only game is currently scheduled for an early December release.

Your gaming soap opera for the holiday. The group that was threatening to release a hack for the Xbox unless Microsoft released a signed Linux boot loader has followed through with their threat and released a public proof of concept. The published hack does not allow for the use of pirated games but the revealing of the exploit allegedly makes it fairly trivial for an experienced programmer to modify the hack for naughty uses.

Group representatives reject claims they are encouraging piracy and accuse the software company of failing to protect its game developers' intellectual property. A signed boot loader won't allow the console to run pirated games, whereas the exploit they have developed will. Free-X say piracy is not something they wish to encourage.

Well, here's your big console news of the day.. it looks like someone has finally figured out how to load Linux onto an X-Box without having to use any special "illegal" mod chips. They use everyone's favorite buffer overflow exploit to execute their own code due to a "bug" that exists in a few X-Box titles. The game used in particular is Agent Under Fire, although the "bug" exists in several titles according to the author. From XBoxhacker:

This "exploit," "hack," or "bug" as some are calling it stems from a seemingly, at the time of this article, simple "hack attack" known as a buffer overflow. Essentially overfilling the cup which is the memory process management of the operating system and slipping in your own piece of code right under its nose without it ever realizing

GameSpyDaily has an interview with David Hufford discussing XBox Live and a bit about the online plans for the XBox which shipped with an ethernet controller. Thanks Blues

Normally console news is saved up until Jason's Late Night Consoling post, but this is pretty big news (and several people have already been emailing us). Seamus Blackley, co-creator of the Xbox and considered the project's father by many, has quit Microsoft. According to Blackley's spokeswoman and Microsoft, he has left for a new venture. What this venture is will not be announced for another two weeks. News of Blackley leaving comes just a few days after Microsoft announced it had cut the sales target for the Xbox by some 40 percent, due to dissapointing sales outside the U.S. In other news, Nintendo has announced a price cut for the GameCube in Europe. Though it hasn't even launched yet, the Cube will now be 199 Euros (about $177) when it launches May 3. Previously the GameCube was going to cost 249 Euros.

Making up for their Xbox price cut interview, the Official Xbox Magazine UK site also has a list of games which will launch when Xbox Live (Xbox internet gaming service) starts later this year. You guys can look forward to MechAssault, Whacked!, Unreal Championship, Ghost Recon and NFL Fever.

If you want to read a really fluffy interview about the Xbox price cut in Europe, you can do so here at the Official Xbox Magazine UK site. Everyone is positive! And things are great!

Following the news that the price of the Xbox would be cut in Europe, comes news that the same thing will happen in Australia. Like in Europe, customers who bought it for the original price will be given two games and a controller.

There's a Hunter: The Reckoning interview on HomeLAN Fed. Scot Lane answers a bunch of questions about this upcoming Xbox action horror title. Q&As are about things like the playable characters, monsters in the game, gameplay elements, why Xbox only, current status of the game and more.

Bloomberg.com has a story about the Xbox sales in Japan and Europe (thanks EuroGamer). Basically, they are bad. The president of Electronic Arts even says "Microsoft has had its teeth kicked in". Perhaps if MS wouldn't screw Europe (and Australia too I hear) on the price of the console it would sell better (around $410 instead of $299). Of course, Microsoft says everything is just peachy

``We're off to a great start in every region,'' O'Rourke said in an interview. ``We went into this with eyes wide open, knowing we would have a successful launch, but it would be measured in different metrics.''

HomeLAN Fed has a Monsters vs Humans interview, chatting with Mark Jordan of Metro3D about this upcoming online FPS for the Xbox. Interview topics include the storyline, the playable characters, type of enviroments and settings in the game, the various gameplay elements, multiplayer options and of course more.

As promised, we now have an Xbox controller roundup from Jason. He takes a look at the differences between the US and Japanese Xbox controller, and for good measure a 3rd party controller is thrown into the mix as well. He compares the controllers using Halo, Jet Set Radio Future, Dead or Alive 3 and Wreckless.

As I was one of those who complained about the size of the American controller (see my Xbox system review) I jumped at the chance to import the Japanese one. Now that IÂ’ve had some time to play with it, I am pleased to present my comparison of the two. IÂ’ve also thrown in InteractÂ’s Xbox PowerPad, simply because I have it here, and because itÂ’s actually larger than MicrosoftÂ’s original Xbox controller. So letÂ’s get too it, shall we? [...]

Computer & Video Games has posted several new screenshots from the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer game which is coming out on the Xbox soon.

Gamespy has posted an interview with Microsoft's David Hufford who reveals plans for the Xbox controller S, a smaller controller for the console. This one will cost $39.95 when it's released early May, and it's actually not totally identical to the Japanese controller.

GameSpy: Will the new pad ever be bundled with the Xbox? David Hufford: We're not planning on that now. We've seen high satisfaction for the current Xbox Controller that comes with the console, and we're sticking to that plan.