In further efforts to keep shut-ins completely mired and satiated, Xbox has announced a partnership with Netflix to stream movies right into your television. Now you won’t even have to go to you mailbox. Hell, stay in your room FOREVER.

As soon as Xbox starts shipping feeding tubes, MREs and catheters, the world’s biggest winners will never have to get out of bed.

Associated Press Reports:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console will be able to stream thousands of movies over the Internet, thanks to a deal with Netflix.

The arrangement Microsoft Corp. announced Monday at the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles will give Netflix’s 8 million subscribers another way to stream movies on a TV instead of a computer. A Netflix-backed startup called Roku already sells a small streaming device that connects to TVs.

The Netflix streaming service — which operates in addition to its DVD-by-mail program — offers 10,000 movies and TV shows. Microsoft’s Xbox had movies available before, but not nearly as many. This expansion is key in helping Microsoft compete with Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, because gaming consoles are becoming entertainment hubs with movies, videos and music.

According to the New York Times, a new track from Guns ‘ N’ Roses will be featured on the forthcoming second installment of the mammoth rad time waster known as Rock Band, due this September. Entitled “Shackler’s Revenge,” the song is purportedly from G’N'R’s perpetually soon-to-be-released “comeback” album, Chinese Democracy.

Word on the street is, when you play the song, if the deli trays and carved, fragrant soaps aren’t perfectly arranged back stage as the rider dictates, Axl is frickin’ out of there.

From Billboard.biz:

Report: New GNR Song Heads To ‘Rock Band 2′
July 14, 2008 - Digital and Mobile

By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

A new Guns N’ Roses song, “Shackler’s Revenge,” apparently from the decade-in-the-works album “Chinese Democracy,” will be included in the video game “Rock Band 2,” according to a report in the New York Times. The game will be released in September.

The news makes it seem increasingly likely that “Chinese Democracy” will finally see the light of day before year’s end via Interscope. Nine seemingly complete tracks from the album, not including “Shackler’s Revenge,” leaked online earlier this summer.

“Rock Band 2,” developed by MTV and Harmonix, will support all songs downloaded for the game to date and will also support the original game’s instrument controllers. But it will also introduce new controllers for drums and guitar and boast a soundtrack of more than 100 master recordings.

In April, Motley Crue made its new single, “Saints of Los Angeles,” available for download “Rock Band” well in advance of the release of the album of the same name. The only other place to obtain the track was iTunes.

According to data provided in late May by the band’s management, Tenth Street Entertainment, the track was downloaded more than 47,000 times via the Xbox 360 version of the game alone in the first week after it became available. (”Rock Band” publisher MTV Networks was unable to independently verify these figures, and total downloads that include the PlayStation 3 version of the game were not available.)

By comparison, the same track received slightly more than 10,000 downloads via digital services like iTunes and Amazon, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The track has now sold more than 62,000 downloads

Last Friday we had been at a loss for content for filming, so I plopped my white ass down infront of the office T.V. (literally 80″ tall, we’re ballers).  It turns out we got Kung Fu Panda: The Game round these parts, so I figured it was about time someone got started on it.

As I was passed the controller I was almost bored stiff within minutes.  You get to walk around as a fat ass panda as Jack Black’s voice tells jokes aimed at 4 year olds… which is probably appropriate, considering thats their target audience and I’m probably at that maturity level anyways.  The fat panda has like 2 moves, and both suck… it’s kind of like the first Mortal Kombat before they put all the blood into it, but without Sub-Zero.

Blood aside, as I kept playing fat ass panda drew me in.  The game started getting more interesting as fat panda gained more moves.  Eventually fat panda was able knock dude’s down with the fat panda ball roll (which in selected parts they do a really kick ass fast paced fat panda ball roll).  Fat panda apparently has an eating problem, as he needs fat panda Asian food to live or something… I never understood that part.

The graphics are pretty good for what it is, and the controls are easy enough that I could pick it up and get going within a minute.  Oh, when fat panda gets sliced by a fat panda enemy’s sword, there is this really brutal cutting sound.  The fat panda game really wasn’t that bad, and we were playing on the Special Olympics setting, so I’m sure more challenging events are waiting for fat panda in the other levels.  For children 6 and up, as well as stoners and alcoholics, this game really is decent.

Fun:  5
Playability:7
Controls:  7
Graphics:  8
Stoner Compatibility: 9

Sony took a lot of heat for its botched release of the PlayStation 3, and many speculated that its stranglehold on the console gaming market was finally broken. However, now that Blu-ray has been named the winner of the next gen DVD battle, Microsoft is looking to its biggest competitor for help with its HD DVD-aligned Xbox 360.

Though Microsoft denies anything official, the Financial Times reported that the two companies are discussing the possibilities.

The newspaper said that there is also the possibility of an internal Blu-ray drive being incorporated into a new, more expensive “premium” 360 model, as it is already in the PlayStation 3. Thusly, Sony would earn royalties from sales of a rival console–a first for the game industry.

As you’d imagine, Sony’s pretty pumped:

For its part, Sony welcomes the possibility of a Blu-ray-equipped Xbox 360. “If Microsoft wants to release Gears of War 3 on a Blu-ray Disc, I think we can make that happen,” Sony Computer Entertainment America’s vice president of product marketing Scott A. Steinberg told GameSpot prior to today’s report.

In what will probably the beginning of the end of the HD DVD format, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and architects of the Deathstar, has joined Netflix and Best Buy in backing the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format. To be fair, poor HD DVD really never stood a chance. The format was backed by Toshiba, while Blu-ray has Sony — and it’s library of 4,000,000,000 films (estimated figure) — in its corner.

According to Wal-Mart’s resident blogger (I wonder what that pays) Susan Chronister:

“So … if you bought the HD player like me, I’d retire it to the bedroom, kid’s playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard def movies, and make space for a BD (Blu-ray disc) player for your awesome Hi Def experience.”

Ouch. Look at this way, if you always wanted an Xbox 360, which currently only supports HD DVD, now might be the time to get one cheap.