piser sent along this link to a story at Xbox Au that reports on significant increases in Xbox sales in Australia since the 40% price slashing of the system in that country. One retailer is quoted as saying that the first two days with the lower price had 2 1/2 times as many sales as the entire launch week. Hopefully this will serve as an important lesson to Microsoft: no amount of hype will get people to shell out $650 for a console system (unless of course that system's a Neo Geo).

• There's more Xbox financial news this evening...NVIDIA has announced that they will beat analyst forecasts for this quarter, and even more surprising, they'll beat 'em for previous quarters thanks to that SEC mandated accounting investigation. On a less rosy note, the company is currently battling with Microsoft over the cost of their Xbox chips. If NVIDIA loses, they'll have to sell them at a loss.
• Moving on, this week is at long last the European GameCube launch. Head over to Eurogamer for coverage.
• Yet another PS2 massively multiplayer game has been announced...Namco has announced Project Venus, a decidedly retro-looking MMORPG for the system. I doubt this one's coming to America. It'll face some stiff competition, and I don't think American audiences will be as receptive (especially since the original Seven never came out here).
• GameSpot has a new movie from Final Fantasy XI online, showing off the character classes in the game.
• Sega has announced Super Monkey Ball 2, the sequel to their hyperactive GameCube title. This time around there will be 150 levels, plus the inevitable multiplayer modes galore.
• Yet another new product announcement tonight...Rockstar has announced Smuggler's Run: Warzones, the first GameCube title in the Smuggler's Run series.
• PS2.IGN has posted a bunch of screenshots from the upcoming vehicular action game Stuntman, and a gameplay movie has been posted at the game's official site.
• Here are the first screenshots from the recently announced Super Ghouls & Ghosts remake for GBA. Not too surprisingly, the game looks just like the original.