Amazon dropped the price of the 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Card to $40 on Saturday as part of an anticipated price match to a Best Buy offer.

The 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Card is available for $39.99 from Amazon with free shipping available and no tax in most states. This is $20 off the regular price.

Note that this is for the physical card only at this moment and not the online game code that is distributed by email once purchased. The price of that is still hovering around $49.

Best Buy still has the 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Card for $39.99 available but that is expected to end tonight when the retailer shifts to its new set of deals for Sunday. The same goes for Toys R Us at the $44.99 price.

An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership is needed to access online play and messaging services for the Xbox 360 along with the many entertainment and social apps including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, Last.fm, HBO Go and ESPN. Microsoft recently announced plans to roll out more than 40 new entertainment apps worldwide over the next year.

Microsoft Xbox 720 could have an eight-core CPU, according to new leaks.

This latest rumour is via BD, who posts regularly on TGFC, which is a Chinese forum. What’s special about him? Well, he is an ex-Ubisoft employee, and claims to know all information about the Xbox 720, including the RAM, and plenty of other stuff.

According to him, the Xbox 720 will have aneight-core CPU, and an 8800 series GPU.

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It is also said that Microsoft will be using Windows 8 kernel for the system, which is pretty straightforward, as they have been pushing it a lot. He said that it will have 8 GB memory and a 640 GB hard drive. 

Treat this with a grain of salt obviously, as nothing is confirmed yet. However, these are times when insiders can leak out information for a variety of reasons. E3 2013 will be held on June 13, so not long to go before Microsoft finally unveils the system to the world.

What are your thoughts on this rumour?

We’ve been hearing for a while that Microsoft won’t wait until E3 to unleash its next-gen Xbox console. Reports this weekend say the launch event may happen in April.

The site also spoke to an unnamed senior official at Sony who claimed the PS4 launch had “Ruffled some feathers” in Redwood, Washington. He also expects Microsoft’s eagerly-antitcipated risposte to come in April.

The next-generation Xbox 720 console will be unveiled at a dedicated Microsoft launch event in April, according to reports this weekend. CVG says it had spoken to industry insiders and game developers, all of whom suggest that the early spring launch is definitely on the cards.

Shortly after the PS4 event Microsoft’s director of programming for Xbox Live Larry Helb (aka Major Nelson) mocked his company’s great gaming rival for not showcasing the goods.

As we already know, last weekend the official Xbox website had revealed out the release date of Battlefield 4 for their Xbox 360, it is now presumed that the release date will might be for the other platforms as well. Now that is official!

According to the EA’s official German facebook page, it is been listed that Battlefield 4 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 31, 2013. It would make all think that, why would EA do that for their BIG GAME FOR THE YEAR ? They’ve made the official announcement very quietly! Everyone had expected a lot more fanfare for the announcement, but they’ve made it through social networking.

On top of all, this release date which was officially confirmed over the official EA’s facebook page fits in with most of the European release dates. If a game releases in the U.S., it should have been made two days after their European counterparts. Now according to Microsoft, who leaked that the game might be releasing on October 29, seems to be legit, which makes Battlefield 4′s October 31 release very likely.

Get ready to start counting down the month, folks! October isn’t that too far away.