As many of our readers, and now many other sites', now know, we posted a story on Friday stating that a local retailer found old Xbox 360 models dating as far back as 2006 in the new 2007 Holiday Bundle boxes. If you have not yet read the article, we suggest you read it here and then return to read the rest of this short update.

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We have received numerous comments on the story through the website N4G.com, some of which gave praise to it, others which condemned it, and some which were just simple thought comments like “Oh man this ain't good”. We would like to note to those people that find this story troubling that they should not actually be so worried. As we noted, the boxes are marked. The differences between them are minimal, yes, but if you take the time to make sure you're getting a brand new model, and not one of the old ones, it will be fine. Also, you should not worry about the 2006 year models possibly being defective, even if they have the older chipsets. The Xbox 360 warranty is now three years for “any hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights”, as stated in the Xbox 360 warranty coverage expansion.

One final note, to those of you who bashed Microsoft in your comments to our article. That kind of commenting is foolish and petty. The product itself is still great, even if this is a major screwup.

On the opposite end of this, to the people who believed our original article to be complete nonsense, it is indeed factual. It appears that in our haste to publish the story we did forget to mention that this issue is happening in Toronto, a mistake our Video Games Editor is taking responsibility for and apologizes for. However, that does not make it any less possible elsewhere. The reason we did not mention the retailer's name, replacing it instead with “local retailer”, is because we do not wish to make people think that that retailer is going to try to scam them every time they shop there. We are not trying to bash or tarnish any company's name, Microsoft included. Finally, we were told first because our Video Games Editor purchases games from stores in his local area and commonly speaks to the associates of those stores about video game related topics. It is an obvious, and quick choice.

We check our facts here at The Comic Book Bin, and the story in question is no different. As the editor of the Video Games section, I take pride in maintaining it as best as can, even if we don't have nearly as much content as the major gaming sites. So when a story like this comes along I have to make sure that it is true. We did post an article about a foolish rumour that another local (Toronto) retailer's associate had told last month, but we made sure that people knew it was just that, a foolish rumour. We also made sure to follow up on that story, to confirm that it was not true. As for this story, it was confirmed in person, as I saw the reorganized boxes myself, taking a look at the different models to see which ones did, and which ones did not have the HDMI port. So yes, it's really true.

Finally, as far as our writing staff swaying in any particular direction for gaming consoles, I believe I should state that I own both a Wii and an Xbox 360 and hope to eventually get a Playstation 3 as well. I am absolutely obsessed with Rock Band at the moment, as well as BioShock and can't wait for Burnout Paradise . I am a big fan of Wii as well and can't wait for the major first party games that are coming in the next couple of months. Mike's a big Blizzard fan, and generally plays PC games, and our other writers all have their own thing. In other words, we have a good balance each way.

We are still waiting to hear back from Microsoft about the situation and hope that we will have an answer as to how this happened as early as tomorrow. I look forward to hearing more comments from both sides. If you wish, you can reach me directly by emailing me at eli@comicbookbin.com.