YOU MAY HAVE noticed the gaming round-up getting a little too fat recently, so we've decided to split it up - keep you eye out later on in the week for another dose.

Xbox 360
Microsoft made another Xbox 360 price-drop this week, this time in Japan.

The 20GB model will drop by around ¥5,000 to ¥34,800. The Core system will get a discount of ¥2,000 and will sell at ¥27,800.

It's doubtful this move will help sales sky rocket into the realms of Wii and PS3 sales though - according to the BBC, Microsoft sold only 122,565 units of the Xbox 360, compared with 503,554 PlayStation 3 units and 1.78 million of the Wii throughout the first half of 2007 in Japan.

After recording a massive sales surge after the release of Halo 3, the Xbox 360 suffered a huge sales drop.

For the week ending October 21, European sales of the Xbox 360 were lower than all platforms other than the GameBoy Advance, reports GamesIndustry.biz

Only 37,303 consoles were sold that week - in contrast, 70,322 Wii consoles and 64,087 PS3 consoles were sold during in the same time frame. Even the PS2 and PSP fared better than the Xbox 360, with 57,152 and 54,449 units sold respectively.

Rumours persisted last week that the Arcade SKU only contained a demo disk - Microsoft issued a press release pointing out that "the Xbox 360 Arcade console will include five best-selling games." If that still leaves room for doubt, Major Nelson dropped word to Joystiq that the disc includes full games, not demo versions.

Microsoft also announced that the Arcade bundle will be released in the region on October 26 for a retail price of £199.99.

Already on sale in the US, the package comes with the five Xbox Live Arcade titles mentioned above, a HDMI cable, 256MB of memory and a wireless controller.

PS3/PSP
Sony said Thursday that quarterly operating losses for its games unit had more than doubled, but that it hoped the division would break even or better in the second half of the financial year.

The Japanese electronics giant posted a gaming unit operating loss of ¥96.7 billion for the quarter ended in September, down ¥53.2 billion year-on-year, which it attributed largely to the price point of its Playstation 3 console.

During the quarter Sony sold 1.31 million Playstation 3s and 10.3 million PS3 software units globally. The ageing PS2 notched up 3.28 million sales and 38 million game sales, while the company also shifted 2.58 million units of its handheld PSP console and 12.6 million games for the system, reports Next-gen.biz.

Sony, Polyphony Digital and the BBC are teaming up to provide multiple Top Gear content in forthcoming Playstation 3 title Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Users will be able to download episodes of TV show Top Gear through Gran Turismo TV, with a total of 40 episodes available over the Playstation Network.

Additionally, the Top Gear Test Track – where show host Jeremy Clarkson and team test drive the latest cars – will be replicated in Gran Turismo 5.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction contains a new PS3 firmware update, v. 1.94, that comes coupled with support for the upcomingDualshock 3 controller and its built-in rumble technology.

Once installed, Shacknews reports that the PS3's PS-button menu shows a "vibration function" toggle.

Wii/DS
Whilst Sony has profit troubles, Nintendo tripled its operating profit forecast to ¥420 billion for this fiscal year. This isNintendo's second revision this year and is an 86% increase over last year's results. Nintendo also raised its software sales goal by 35% to 97 million units.

The PS3 already has a 1seg TV tuner, but now it seems the DS is likely to receive one too.

Nintendo has released details of the official 1seg tuner, which looks like a great accessory for the Japanese public. Please Nintendo release a Freeview version in the UK.

This dongle will sell for ¥6800 when it goes on sale in Japan on November 20th.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the first in what has turned out to be a number of recent delays, both high and low profile. Perrin Kaplan, their outgoing vice president of marketing in the U.S., gave an additional reason for the delay, over the normal ones - fleshing out the huge Nintendo release schedule, assuring more games are released outside of the rampant last quarter. µ