Xbox, Halo and Midtown 3 for £140

Obviously feeling the pressure from Nintendo, whose £79 GameCube price cut sent purple joybox sales soaring beyond Xbox, Microsoft has today unveiled a special Christmas bundle offer to entice gamers in their direction.

The new Xbox bundle, which is available now for as long as stocks last, offers an Xbox console, a copy of flagship title Halo, a copy of the superb Midtown Madness 3 and a voucher worth two months' subscription to Xbox Live - all for £139.99.

A standalone Xbox generally retails for £129.99, so the bundle really does represent excellent value - Halo may be ubiquitous these days, but Midtown Madness 3 still retails for £29.99 or more in most places.

At the time of writing, the bundle is available from Amazon here, priced £132.99. Once you factor in delivery costs, it comes to about £138.50.