Normally anybody passing us a Something Awful URL would have us all screaming 'OMG NO DON'T CLICK THAT' at the top of our lungs.

Looks like the authors of Penny Arcade were scribbling on cocktail napkins while at E3. This one takes aim at the Xbox controller.

While this article only gives passing mention to Halo itself, The Gaming Intelligence Agency does talk a bit about the splash the Xbox made at E3-- to the effect that it wasn't as much as, say, Nintendo's GameCube. YMMV.

But the interesting part, aside from their comments on the Xbox controller, was their assertion that they saw an Xbox crash-- yes, crash-- during a demonstration.

Word is reverberating around the 'net about Microsoft's announcement of a $299 price point for the Xbox and a November 8 launch date. That's the the same price that Sony's PlayStation 2 currently sells for, and a launch just three days after the Nintendo GameCube debuts. Note, however, that Nintendo announced their launch date after Microsoft announced theirs.

Here's a couple of stories elsewhere on the web:

Xbox.com has posted the details of the E3 press conference where Microsoft revealed when you'll most likely to be able to get your hand on an XBox, and how much you can expect to pay. To wit: November 8, 2001 and $299.

Microsoft expects to have between 600,000 and 800,000 units available the first day. Xbox.com also has the full transcript of the release as well as a rebroadcast of it.

According to Shack News, the XBox has gone gold. When a product has gone gold, or gold master, that means that the software is in its final form and is ready to be sent for mass printing. So how can the XBox go gold then? We don't know, but that's how they're reporting it. If you've got the RealPlayer plugin, you can watch a video at Yahoo! that was posted a short while ago on the announcement.

Char posted about a streaming EPTV item to our forum in which the Xbox and a number of its better games are described. We get to see Jason Jones hanky-headed, which makes one wonder if he decided to shave the ol' noggin again. Here's what he says:

There have been numerous debates over the XBox's shipping date. Microsoft has not commented themselves, but IGN XBox has put together a well-thought out article detailing their estimation of the release date. If all goes according to plan, then the XBox would hit store shelves during the second week of November 2001: