If you're a Comcast customer, the arrival of HBO Go on Xbox 360 was little more than a tease. Starting next week you'll be able to watch HBO content (see: Game of Thrones) on your Xbox 360. You'll need to use your Xfinity login information to gain access once the HBO Go app is available, which Comcast says should be "early next week."

You are McAllister, a living legend in baseball, hunched over on the mound while gripping your lifeless throwing arm one moment after throwing a record-breaking out. Next thing you know, you're in a car accident, and wake up at a demented, run-down amusement park called Queen Christine's Dream Land. There, a man in a suit with the head of a cow explains that you can get your arm back to form by throwing your way to the castle at the end of the park -- while wearing a bionic arm.

This is Diabolical Pitch, the latest XBLA title from Grasshopper Manufacture. As odd as it sounds, what's important to note is that this game is dependent on Microsoft's Kinect peripheral, and every throw by McAllister is a real-life throw by you.

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Let's just get this out of the way: in its current state, the Kinect can't deliver a true lightsaber experience. The device's input lag combined with the hardware's finicky nature simply won't allow it. That's not to say that Kinect Star Wars isn't without its merits. There are a few decent ideas hidden in its sub-games, even some fun to be had, but the overall package is lacking.

I suspect some Star Wars fans (or parents of Star Wars fans) will find its Force pull irresistible, but even the most dedicated Jedi is likely to find it underwhelming.

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While Amazon isn't actually discounting the Star Wars Xbox bundle, it is willing to offer a few extra space credits on the side. Specifically, the Star Wars bundle is now eligible for a $50 Amazon credit. Lest you've forgotten, the bundle comes with a sweet R2-D2 Xbox, a white Kinect unit, a gold C-3PO controller with transforming D-pad and, naturally, a copy of Kinect Star Wars.

Lest you've also also forgotten, we'll be giving one of these away at our live podcast at PAX East later this week. Be sure to come see it this Saturday at 3pm in the Manticore Theatre!

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A dark, cynical part of us truly enjoys April Fools' day. We already have severe trust issues with the world at large, and one day a year we're allowed to look at every single person with a complete lack of belief or respect and have it be totally normal. We're proud to say that while we watched the above trailer for Assassin's Creed on Kinect, the expression on our faces was absolutely normal.

We haven't figured out a way to travel into the future yet, and we're just as upset as you are about that. But the closest thing has to be playing games that aren't actually out yet, right? Microsoft is offering PAX East attendees a chance to do just that next weekend.

Major Nelson posted the list of activities and upcoming Kinect and XBLA titles that will be playable at Microsoft's booth, including Trials Evolution, MineCraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. We hear one of our editors really liked that last one when he got a chance to play it earlier this month.

Also of note is a playable build of Dust: An Elysian Tale, the winner of 2009's "Dream-Build-Play" competition. It's currently slated to launch on Xbox Live Arcade in 2012.

More than half of the time people spend on Xbox Live is devoted to watching videos and listening to music, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi told the Los Angeles Times. "What we're seeing is that people are turning on the Xbox to play games and then keeping it on afterwards to get other types of entertainment," Mehdi said.

The Xbox 360 isn't a gaming console; it's now officially an entertainment center that includes games, and it's becoming more popular with this angle. Today households spend an average of 84 hours a month playing games and using other apps on Xbox Live, up 30 percent from a year prior. To compare, the average household watches 150 hours of TV each month.

Even before Kinect, a tool that has always made more sense as an entertainment control rather than a gaming one, Microsoft has wanted the Xbox 360 to be "the heart of connected digital entertainment," as HBO senior vice president of consumer technology Otto Berkes put it.

Today Microsoft added MLB.TV, HBO GO and Comcast Xfinity TV apps to its lineup, which already includes Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, Zune, Last.fm and others.

MLB.TV isn't the only app premiering on Xbox 360 today: HBO GO and Comcast Xfinity TV are now live and ready for your viewing pleasure. Both apps are available at no cost for current HBO GO and/or Xfinity TV subscribers, and they are both Kinect compatible.

From here, this looks like perfect timing, at least on HBO's part -- The second season of Game of Thrones premieres on Sunday, and we believe there's no better place to watch a smattering of gory, smutty violence than through the device you use to play gory, smutty games.

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Subscribers to the MLB.TV service -- which streams out-of-market regular season baseball games -- will be able to access games through a new Xbox 360 app. Previously, the PS3 had the exclusive rights to MLB.TV.

The Xbox 360 version features an exclusive split-screen mode allowing users to watch two games at once: two live games; a live game and a recap; or two recaps at once, each with independent controls. Then, of course, there's the standard gesture and Kinect control options.

The app is available today, a free download on the Xbox 360. But in order to access the MLB.TV content, you'll need to pony up for a premium subscription and have an Xbox Live Gold account.

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Rumors of a new Xbox have been swirling for quite some time now, though they are now taking a slightly different shape. The next Xbox hardware won't actually be a generational leap, according to anonymous blogger MS Nerd, posting on Reddit. Instead, the console will actually be a stripped down version of the current Xbox, which will concentrate on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect apps. This is apparently the same ARM-powered console that MS Nerd first discussed in November of last year. The device will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV and is apparently slated for a late 2013 launch.

Meanwhile, the "true successor" will launch sometime after with the same media apps and support for more core game experiences. Furthermore, the next generation of Kinect will supposedly launch sometime around 2015. At this point, keeping track of the next Xbox is becoming something of a chore, with estimates for a new launch ranging from late this year all the way out to 2014. For Microsoft's part, the company says there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at this year's E3.

Double Fine's Tim Schafer was the guest of honor last evening at New York University's Game Center, joining Zynga New York's creative director (and NYU professor) Frank Lantz for an "Inside the Gamer's Studio" conversation. Schafer, however, brought more than just good conversation. He showed off two separate versions of a prototyped game that Double Fine ended up shelving. The prototype, for no reason at all, is dubbed "*Specs."

In the first video (seen above), rudimentary concepts for the game are introduced. Two convicts sit in a prison cell, a shiv on the floor between them. The player character isn't one of the two convicts, or even the shiv, but instead a possessed amulet that's using its power of influence to guide the actions of those around it (inanimate objects included). As it turns out, one of the two convicts has said amulet in his hand when the prototype kicks off.

The two emotions that the amulet can produce – love and hate – are represented by blue and red cursors on-screen, each mapped to one of your hands. With just two emotions, a handful of set pieces to interact with, and a Kinect, a variety of potential outcomes with varying levels of hilarity ensued.

*Double Fine senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis explained the name via Twitter. "We name prototypes after Chinatown bars at DF (running out of bars now)," Kipnis said, in reference to San Francisco's Chinatown. "Psychonauts was Li Po. Brütal Legend was my favorite bar in Chinatown, Buddha Bar." So there's that! This is "Specs."

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We fully expected Dragon's Lair to show up on XBLA sooner or later, so that PEGI listing wasn't much of a surprise. However, publisher Digital Leisure managed to surprise us anyway -- with Kinect support.

You can play Dragon's Lair normally, or you can respond to on-screen prompts with the correct motion. Examples shown in screens include jumping away from a crumbling floor or reaching up to grab a rope.

That makes Dragon's Lair an unlikely technological trailblazer: according to PlayXBLA, it'll be the first XBLA game to support both the Kinect and the traditional controller. Assuming it arrives before Steel Battalion, of course.

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Having held the top NPD spot for the past 14 months straight -- and with the introduction of Kinect -- the old Xbox 360 still has some life in it yet. "For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360," Xbox spokesperson and Group Manager of PR David Dennis told Bloomberg. "There will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon."

A few sources close to news outlet Bloomberg insist that Microsoft will introduce a new console in 2013 at the earliest. Next year's E3 could hold an unveiling of the Xbox 360 successor, says the report, with a potential same-year launch to follow. Now doesn't that sound familiar?

[Note: Image taken from our Microsoft E3 2011 keynote liveblog.]