Spong.com has pictures of the Xbox 360 that aren't extreme close-ups of the device seen from bizarre angles.  Microsoft's North American PR team has been playing the OurColony.net alternate reality game in which photos of the Xbox 360 are revealed a piece at a time, although frankly I've seen photos of the Loch Ness Monster that are more revealing that the Xbox photos.  Spong claims that a European PR team has cut to the chase and outright revealed the console nearly three weeks before Microsoft's big MTV media-bypassing infomercial event.  The often-wrong website has also supposedly verified these pictures with a Microsoft publishing partner.  I'd still take these with a grain of salt, but it's quite possible that this is the real deal.

"The images have been spewing forth over the past few hours from various European online outlets, all of which were fed by the specialist press. In what has to be seen as a complete European PR disaster, the MTV showing penned for mid next month has had its trump card flipped over for all to see."

Kudos to the European media for finally revealing the damn console.  Microsoft has been getting far too carried away with viral marketing and alternate reality.  These marketing methods should only be used if there's actually some beneficial information revealed during the campaign.  Prolonged hype that shows nothing of value just serves to anger and frustrate the audience.