When compared to Microsoft's Windows Vista, the Xbox 360 and the online services for its users are all one step next to perfection, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as Xbox 360 problems. On the contrary, there are quite a few of them, ranging from software to hardware issues, and now assorted with various Xbox Live problems...

During last weekend, Microsoft's service for Xbox users had a bunch of connection issues, the peak being reached this morning, when it all came crashing down. Major Nelson kept users up to date with these Xbox Live problems during the weekend, since the multiplayer and online service were both disconnecting users pretty often.

This wouldn't be such a big fuzz, after all, unless we wouldn't be that close to the launch of the New Xbox Experience. Today, maintenance was expected to cause additional problems, since Larry Hyrb wrote that "As a result, Xbox Live and the My Xbox section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions."

If you ask me, I think the latest problems weren't something to see that often in the future, because even today's maintenance session is all about paving the way for the new front-end of the popular Xbox Live service. "This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available this Wednesday," concluded Hyrb.

We're living in hard times, and computer games have to face them, too. One bad review is no big deal, but once you get a bunch of them, you can say "good bye" to a serious slice of the gaming market, no matter what's the game and who's the company behind it. I won't give any examples now, but since I usually check for reviews and top rankings before buying a game, here's what I found for you today: the top 20 games of the last month(best selling ones, of course - that doesn't mean all of them will get excellent rankings in various reviews)!

Just looking at the list below, I can draw the following quick conclusions: Fallout 3 goes as well as expected, with Fallout 3 Collectors Edition coming in strong(I expect it to enter top 5 next month), while Spore got second place, right ahead of Nancy Drew and Far Cry 2, closely followed by a MMORPG pair - Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning and World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest, but here's the entire top 20 video games top, with the average US prices of each item in the list:

1. Fallout 3 / Bethesda Softworks / $49
2. Spore / EA Maxis / $49
3. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy / Her Interactive / $18
4. Far Cry 2 / Ubisoft Montreal / $50
5. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning / EA Mythic / $49
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard Entertainment / $38
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $26
8. Fallout 3 Collectors Ed / Bethesda Softworks / $79
9. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $25
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA Los Angeles / $48
11. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard Entertainment / $20
12. Civilization IV: Colonization / Firaxis / $29
13. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade / Blizzard Entertainment / $29
14. Crysis: Warhead / Crytek / $30
15. Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway / Gearbox Software / $49
16. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Premier Ed / EA Los Angeles / $65
17. Dead Space / EA Redwood Shores / $49
18. Spore Creature Creator / Spore Creature Creator / $10
19. Civilization IV / Firaxis / $24
20. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $25

As a final note, could you believe how well is still hanging on the now venerable Civilization IV? For me, this was the most pleasant surprise of the October top 20 video games, and I hope next month we'll also get to see such things coming from NPD Group.

If you ask me, the ESRB could as well go to Mars right away, and rate games produced there, but you can't always get what you want. After all, game ratings are not that bad, as long as they don't turn into spoilers. Why? Well, this week, the ESRB reported its new ratings guidelines, and the new descriptive write-ups can spoil all the fun provided by games like Fallout 3...

According to a short article published by Kotaku, quoting GameSpot, "The ESRB write-ups can also include details of plot twists and other spoilers. One line from the Resistance 2 write-up omitted in the quote above reveals a significant plot detail from a climactic moment of the game. Fallout 3 is another title with a key revelation included in the summary."

Oh, my, if those guys at the ESRB had to play a game and check for some elements, until now, it seems the game is getting much harder for them. After all, if you're going to get in the story that deep, why not turn the "Entertainment Software Rating Board" into "Entertainment Software Reviewing Board?" First, they were telling us if a game is good for a certain age or not, and now, they are slowly moving towards giving away all there is to discover inside the game. I don't know why, but this looks EXTREMELY fishy to me. How about you?

Think about modern buildings, the railroads, cars, and a bunch of other things today's man would suddenly find himself sent a few centuries back. What do they have in common? They all use metal, of course, but when it comes to metal, nothing's better than heavy metal! Now, if we link this to the gaming world, we run straight into a problem - Guitar Hero and other similar games don't have enough metal! Well, this issue could become a part of the past pretty soon, as we're going to see today...

While Guitar Hero or Rock Band may have some tracks by great metal bands included, a lot of fans consider there's still not enough, so visual effect consultants EBT3 Creations and talent management company Indevent USA have formed a new multi-media company called Reign Productions, with only one thing in mind - to make things right!

For now, we have no additional details, but the information currently available hints that their first project will be a multi-million dollar video game containing nothing but metal, and a major announcement is expected to be made at the NAMM global music products show in Ananheim, California.

Since the event mentioned above takes place in January, I think there's enough time for the Reign Productions guys to decide if they want to serve in Heaven, and provide us with a bunch of so-called "metal bands" that are anything but metall, or rule in Hell, bringing a game with the cream of the genre: Immortal, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Hypocrisy, and so on.

Target: game statistics. Location: US. ETA: right now! So... what about a new round of game statistics, and another round of news simply defying the global economic cooldown. Well, some call that a crisis, not "cooldown," but I hate those who inflate such things, so better use the soft words instead of the rough ones. Anyway, let's cut the chatter and let the numbers speak, shall we?

Before I give you those numbers, let me tell you that we're talking about hardware sales in the US for October, according to the latest data from NPD, as usual:

1. Nintendo Wii: 803,000
2. Nintendo DS: 491,000
3. Xbox 360: 370,000
4. PlayStation Portable: 193,000
5. PlayStation 3: 190,000
6. PlayStation 2: 136,000

Is this a crisis, or not? Well, sales say everything goes well - hardware revenues in the US grew by 5 percent, up to USD 494.74 million, while the sales of accessories fell to USD 120.19 million, that being 8 percent.

For now, things are still loooking good, but if we're going to talk about a crisis, that's what remains to be seen after we check the game statistics of the shopping spree next month. After all, that's when the big sales should happen...or not.