Another day, another milestone for a Minecraft game. According to a tweet from Mojang's business developer Daniel Kaplan the Xbox Live Edition of the popular world-building game has set a new sales record.

"I really love that Im back at work! And I was really surprised to see that 3.6 million people have now purchased Minecraft for Xbox. WOW! <3"

While Sony has had no problems bringing free-to-play games like Free Realms and DC Universe Online to the PlayStation Network, Microsoft has been very cautious in allowing online games (let alone free ones) onto Xbox Live. That is about to change when it launches ToyLogic's Happy Wars in the fall.

Happy Wars is described as a multiplayer combat game that will be free for Gold members to download and play. Being a free-to-play title, Happy Wars will also include in-game transactions so you can by various extras to enhance the gameplay.

Soon your Xbox 360 will become politically charged! Microsoft announced today that it is bringing an Election 2012 hub to Xbox Live so that you can't escape the vitriol and hate of both parties! You know you want it.

Beginning on August 27, Xbox Live subscribers can check out the Election 2012 hub, where they'll find NBC News coverage, information about the candidates, daily polls, live coverage of the presidential debates, and coverage from both the Democratic and Republican conventions.

Microsoft is hosting the Gaming and Giving for Good (or G3) Xbox LIVE charity event on August 18, 2012 to benefit Extra Life, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals fundraiser. By playing your favorite Xbox 360 games, you can help raise some much needed money for your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital by gathering pledges for donations from friends and family. In support of the G3 event, Xbox LIVE is also offering a Free Gold Weekend to everyone on the weekend of August 18.

Scribblenauts developer 5th Cell was forced to pull its latest game, the XBLA title Hybrid, from the Xbox Live Marketplace on launch day after gamers complained that the servers for the game "were unavailable."

Gamers who bought the PlayStation 3 version of Konami's game, Silent Hill HD, got a patch last month that dealt with a number of frame rate and audio-sync issues. Good service. But those who bought the game on the Xbox 360 have pretty much been told to "go pound salt." Konami issued a brief statement this week noting that it wouldn't be releasing an update for Xbox 360 gamers who bought the game. Bad service.

Mojang has revealed that it is on its way to doubling profits over last year thanks to the Xbox Live version of Minecraft. The company tells it24 that profits have really soared this year and that it is selling over 17,000 copies of the Xbox Live version of the game every day.

Microsoft is "working toward improvements" to community moderation on Xbox Live, according to a report on Polygon. The company is working towards more robust automated moderation tools, including algorithms that can reportedly detect repeat offenders and mute them automatically.

Barring any technical glitches, the Mars rover Curiosity is scheduled to land on the planet Mars sometime this weekend, and with the help of Microsoft and your Xbox Live account, you'll be able to be a part of it.

Internet advocacy group Public Knowledge has filed a formal petition asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to look into Comcast's violation of the agreement it signed when it merged with NBC Universal, according to an Ars Technica report. The group argues that Comcast gives preferential treatment to its own video services over other video services on the Internet by not having its usage count against customer data caps.

In Episode 12 of Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss Fez developer Phil Fish's decision not to fix the patch for the game before re-releasing it to Xbox Live (because it costs too much money), Uniloc's patent infringement claims against Minecraft maker Mojang, last week's results from the GamePolitics poll, and the media trying to blame Batman comics, movies and games for the horrific Aurora, Colorado theater shooting.

The Xbox 360 edition of Mojang's popular sand-box building game Minecraft has sold more than three million copies, raising approximately $60 million since its release on Xbox Live Arcade March 9. In May Mojang announced that total sales for the franchise on all platforms (PC, mobile devices, and XBLA) were well over 10 million units.

The news came from Mojang co-founder Markus "Notch" Persson via Twitter:

"I got told Minecraft for XBLA passed three million sales today!"

Microsoft's entertainment and devices division did pretty well in the fourth quarter despite the company's overall performance delivering the first loss for the company since it went public in 1986. The company posted a net loss of $492 million for the quarter, despite posting record revenue of $18.06 billion.

One thing customers do not want to hear is something along the lines of "we can't do the right thing because it costs too much money." That is exactly what Fez developer Polytron has said about a broken patch that it plans to re-deploy for the game on Xbox Live. Polytron quickly yanked a patch it released earlier in the month because it corrupted some players' save game files.

Xbox Europe head honcho Chris Lewis tells VG247 that the European arm of the Microsoft division is paying close attention to how the $99 Xbox 360 Kinect Bundle does in America. If it proves to be very popular the same deal might make its way to European countries, he claims.

In what could be considered taking a great stride towards the promise of Microsoft’s Smart Glass, the company has revealed that its My Xbox Live app is now fully compatible with Apple's iPad. Microsoft's app now provides the same capabilities that were added to other Apple devices last month including the iPhone and iPod touch.

As is usually the case with every new version of Halo, Halo 4 will require a substantial amount of space on your Xbox 360. Halo 4 will need at least 8GB of hard drive or flash memory card space to play the multiplayer modes, according to Xbox.com. The description on Xbox.com also notes that using the hard drive is "highly recommended" for those who want an "optimal" experience.

South Korea's new "Shutdown Law" was supposed to keep teens from gaming during a six hour block every night to focus on "more important things" like studying, but two groups have already filed lawsuits that question the legality of the new nanny state law concocted by lawmakers in the country. A group of game makers doing business in the region including NCsoft, Neowiz, and Nexon, have filed a lawsuit claiming that the Shutdown Law is unjust and unfair to them.

We reported on this when Microsoft made the announcement a while ago, but now it's official: Microsoft's $99 Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle with a questionable two-year subscription to Xbox Live is now available in limited quantities at both Best Buy and GameStop in the United States. The deal was previously only available at about 14 Microsoft stores in the United States but the company said that it needed more locations to test out the viability of the program so it expanded it through some retail partnerships.

A recent patch that was supposed to fix exploits in the popular indie puzzler Fez has apparently broken save games. Developer Polytron urged those who had not already downloaded it to avoid doing so, before Microsoft yanked the update off of Xbox Live .

On the official company blog the developer said the following:

According to a tweet from the official Twitter feed for Xbox Live Rewards, future achievement points earned by Xbox 360 players will reward players with MS Point rewards. According to the tweet, Microsoft will begin rewarding players for unlocking achievements with MS Points:

"We've hit 50,000 followers, which means it's time for an announcement! Coming Fall: a new way to earn Rewards based on your Achievements!"

As if you didn't have enough distractions on Xbox Live, Microsoft has decided to create new ads that take advantage of the Xbox 360's motion sensing Kinect technology. Coming to Xbox Live this fall, the ads (called NUads) will let consumers choose an ad-inspired adventure - a little mini-game you can play while you soak in the deliciousness of being served up information about this or that product.

If you were aching to get that $99 Xbox 360 deal (we detailed the pitfalls of it way back in Episode 2 of the Super PAC) then you might be happy to hear that Microsoft will extend the pilot program beyond the Microsoft store to other retailers including Best Buy and GameStop later this month.

According to a couple of tweets from the guys at Mojang today, the Xbox Live Arcade version of Minecraft is the "best selling Xbox Live Arcade ever."

"Best-selling Live Arcade game ever, in less than a month," said Minecraft creator and Mojang boss Markus Persson on Twitter earlier today.

Mojang business developer Daniel Kaplan later tweeted that the Xbox 360 version of the game has already managed to sell over 2 million units.

Note to Microsoft: If you are going to host your E3 Media Briefing on Xbox Live, you might want to consider that when you issue commands to Kinect that they might activate commands on viewer's local systems. During the entire briefing I fought a war of words with my system yelling at it to "play" every time it paused or tried to exit out of the video I was watching.

Earlier this month we reported that some consumers who purchased Minecraft on Xbox Live wanted a refund because they couldn't play the game in split-screen co-op. The problem related to the game requiring a high definition television set to play the game that way - a fact that they did not disclose to consumers in any of the game's information or on the product page. Because of this fact consumers felt misled and were demanding a refund.

In a post on the official Comcast blog, Tony Werner (Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, in Network and Operations) says that his company's video-on-demand service on Xbox Live, Xfinity, in no way violates net neutrality rules. In fact, he claims, the service is not an Internet service at all but a cable service served up using cable resources and not internet bandwidth.

Not long ago AT&T U-verse TV customers could order a "hardware kit" for their Xbox 360 that allowed them to use Microsoft's console as a set-top box. But according to a report from Multichannel.com, AT&T has suspended the program so that it can improve the service. In a statement on its website for the service AT&T wrote:

According to this Kotaku report Microsoft is refusing to give some customers a refund for the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. Why would people want a refund? Well, yesterday Kotaku uncovered the fact that if you don't own a high definition television set then the game won't allow you to play split-screen multiplayer with friends.

Minnesota Senator Al Franken (D) says that Comcast is thumbing its nose at net neutrality rules by offering an exemption to data caps when it comes to its Xfinity video services on Xbox Live. He feels so strongly about it that he has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) asking both agencies to investigate the company. At the heart of Franken's complaint is that the content that is streamed directly to the Xbox console will not be counted against subscribers' 250GB monthly data cap.