Microsoft cut the price of its 250GB and 4GB Kinect Xbox 360 bundles by $50. All holiday bundles included in the deal can be picked up at GameStop, Best Buy, Kmart, Target and Amazon.

Each bundle is priced at $250 except for the standard and holiday 250GB Kinect bundles, which are $350. Most of the bundles have games and DLC codes packed in, including Forza 4, Kinect Adventures, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, Fable 3, Halo: Reach and a digital copy of Skyrim.

We've called GameStop and still have yet to find an end date for this offer, but we'll update as soon as we find out.

NBA Baller Beats, the Kinect-based basketball rhythm game, sold a mere 3,000 copies in the US during its debut month of September, sales tracking service NPD told Joystiq. An odd outcome for a game that had a controversially high number of Twitter followers and YouTube views.

We weren't given the opportunity to review the game [ahead of launch - Ed.] by publisher Majesco, despite repeated requests, but we did find a unicorn that actually purchased NBA Baller Beats in the meantime.

"The game itself is well done and one of the better Kinect titles on the market," Robert Goode of the CAGcast told us. "Unfortunately, the market of athletic basketball fans who also have a Kinect and an unfinished basement is not flourishing."

And this post likely concludes our The Good, The Bad and The Ugly day of basketball stories here on Joystiq.

Whether you're in it for some free Halo armor or to participate in our nation's democratic process, tonight is the second in a series of four debates leading up to the 2012 presidential election. Following the first debate between Republican nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, Romney's running mate Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden go head-to-head this evening.

Starting at 9pm ET tonight, you'll be able to tune into the Vice-Presidential debate through the Election 2012 hub on Xbox Live. The same interactive features from the last debate will also be available, including live voting through the app and suggesting questions through Twitter with the #XboxPoll hashtag.

Backbone Entertainment, the Foundation 9-owned developer of many HD re-releases and retro collections including Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection – as well as the Death Jr. series – has suffered layoffs, Foundation 9 CEO James North-Hearn has told Gamasutra.

"Due to a lower demand for conventional console development, the studio has made some difficult but necessary adjustments in both its capacity and services, with the goal of matching the changing needs of today's market," North-Hearn said. "The dedicated development staff at Backbone has put together some of the studio's best work for our partners in the upcoming fall releases, Dance Central 3 and Midway Arcade Origins."

The scope of the layoffs was not revealed.

If you're a fan of the long-running Fable series, you're probably wondering how designer Peter Molyneux's swan song for the franchise turned out. The good news is that Fable: The Journey finally fulfills some of Molyneux's infamous promises. The bad news is that few of them are the promises he made for Fable: The Journey.

The Journey puts the player in the fur-lined boots of Gabriel, a young and adventurous Dweller, Albion's version of a gypsy traveler, who sits behind the reins of his beloved and loyal horse, Seren. Gabriel is anxious for a life of more than driving a cart through a caravan, hoping to find a life of adventure and heroism, presumably the same way the player is supposed to feel. Using the Kinect, players control Gabriel as he drives Seren on the roads of Albion. Before long, Gabriel is separated from his clan and comes across Theresa, the blind seer who has been a Fable mainstay since the beginning. Theresa tells Gabriel of his destiny and the magic he will wield.

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Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah is finally returning to video games. The star of Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest and Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool is bringing his natural charisma, charm, and insatiable desire for cheese-flavored corn snacks to Just Dance 4.

By entering codes found on Cheetos bags into the Wii or Xbox versions of Just Dance 4, orange-fingered dancers will be able to unlock Cobra Starship's "You Make Me Feel" – featuring dance moves from the giant-headed cat monster himself – and Anja's "Brand New Start." The promotion is available from the October 9 release date through December 31.

Did you know there are "Salsa Con Queso" and "Smoked Cheddar" Cheetos? We didn't, until just now, when we learned that from our job writing about video games.

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When the folks at EA Tiburon told us they were "committed to post-launch support" of Madden 13 back in August, we weren't told just how often the game would see that support. As it turns out, the next update is scheduled to release October 16, about a month after the previous update.

This update, the third one for Madden 13, fixes some gameplay and presentation issues while focusing on the game's career mode. Connected Careers mode is getting some noteworthy updates this month with the addition of player editing for online leagues, the ability to use custom rosters offline, and the option to change offensive and defensive coaching schemes. Aside from new features, Connected Careers is also receiving a number of fixes for some of its glaring issues, including a fix for the online mode's broken accelerated clock.

This week on Xbox Live, you can get into a fight for cheap. And not the kinds of fights you get into with racists over chat – the kind you might actually enjoy. The XBLM Deal of the Week, active from today through Oct. 8, gives you half off Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, and Dungeon Fighter Live – the last one not really fitting the theme, but at least it has "Fighter" in the title.

Other deals going on this week include discounts on Activision-published games, Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, and Fighters Uncaged for Kinect.

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A demo of Harmonix's Dance Central 3 is available now for demonstrative busting of one's moves on the Xbox Marketplace. The sampler includes Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor," Maroon 5's ubiquitous "Moves Like Jagger" and Nicki Minaj's "Starships!" – the latter to get you higher than a mutha...

The demo also includes Party Time, activated with a a high five, which allows players with a partner, among other things, to make their own moves. Bring The Charleston back, you can do it!

After the impressive FIFA Soccer 12 last year, it's easy to have high expectations for this year's soccer game from EA Canada. Barring any major setbacks to the series, the question of how great FIFA 13 would be wasn't an unreasonable one to ponder heading into the game's release.

This is, without a doubt, the best soccer sim I've ever played. Kicking off with First Touch Control, FIFA 13 adds shades of unpredictability that I'm not used to in a sports game, even after setting the tone with last year's introduction of the Player Impact Engine. First Touch Control adds more weight to the initial touch players put on the ball, thanks to added elements of physics in players' actions. As a result, every play feels reasonably risky, and none of your passes are certain to hit their mark to a point of predictability. The ball might take a hard bounce if you attempt to volley it instead of safely settling it when receiving a pass.

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Paranormal Activity 4 comes out in October and looks to uphold the series' legacy of gritty camera work and terrifying jump-scare moments. As with its predecessors, 4 adds new reasons an otherwise normal house would have 24-hour demon-tracking technology in every room, including one piece of hardware that isn't out of place in a modern suburban home: Kinect.

The latest trailer for Paranormal Activity 4, viewable above, shows the family in a darkened room explaining the projections of Kinect's tracking dots. Creepy. Later on the dots pick up something that isn't human, which is also pretty scary, we guess.

Since Kinect is obviously the latest tech trend in ghost hunting, we expect to see it pop up on Ghost Adventures soon, alongside that audio box that spits out random words, that thing that analyzes "energy" in mysterious units and that guy who always gets sick. Science.

Dance Central DLC prices have been cut like a rug for a limited time, with packs slashed by various percentages and singles half-steppin' away. Packs electric slide between 250 to 1500 Microsoft points, while singles are 160 MSP ($2) apiece.

All DLC will be compatible with Dance Central 3, which gains access to the retail club on October 16. Review the entire list of discounted tracks at the Dance Central site.

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During Namco Bandai's TGS 2012 showcase event, I got a chance to try out Dragon Ball Z: Kinect. This might be a good time to admit that, yes, I was young once. Check out the video above for my experience with the Kinect-powered kamehameha simulator. Just be warned it ... it gets a little geeky in there.

Kinect Nat Geo TV and Kinect Sesame Street TV launch today, for 2400 MS Points ($30) each. They both include eight 30-minute interactive episodes, which can be purchased for 400 MS Points ($5) apiece.

Kinect Sesame Street TV is rated EC for "Early Childhood," while Nat Geo goes all-out with a hedonistic rating of E10+, for "Everyone 10 and older." From the terrifying look on that cat's face – the one on the right with the blue eyes of death – we can see why.