Pics of the event are up at the official site, with teeny-tiny snaps of all the participants and a few of the lovely Xbox Cheerleaders. I'm sure Joel will have much more to say about the event when he returns, so keep your eye on our WBC 360 coverage for more.

Australia and Xbox Break World Water Balloon Record

About 50,000 water balloons are thrown to celebrate the record-breaking launch of the Xbox 360 console in Australia.

SYDNEY, Australia — April 22, 2006 — More than 2,900 gamers from around the world staged the world's largest water balloon event in Australia today. The Water Balloon Challenge, held on Sydney's Coogee Beach, celebrated the record-breaking launch of the Xbox 360 console in Australia and raised money for a local lifesaving group.

About 50,000 water balloons, the same number of Xbox 360 consoles that have been sold in the country since the launch on March 23, 2006, were thrown by participants. Gamers traveled from as far away as Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States to take part in the event.

"It was absolutely crazy when the balloons started flying — there was so much water I should have worn scuba gear," said Niels Keurentjes of the Netherlands. "I flew thousands of miles to get here, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

The previous world record for a water balloon event was held by 2,677 Spaniards after the record was set in 2005.

"This was a great chance for us to do something fun for all those thousands of Australians who helped make the Xbox 360 launch such a success," said David McLean, regional director of Xbox Australia and New Zealand at Microsoft. "It was a great chance for everyone to jump in and remember the joy and fulfillment that comes from playing games of any kind."

The Water Balloon Challenge had a serious side as well. Five dollars from every registration fee was donated to the Coogee Surf Lifesaving Club to assist in its ongoing patrol of the famous Coogee Beach.

"There is nothing more Australian than coming together to play on the beach," said Rob Yelon from Coogee Surf Lifesaving Club. "Today's event was a massive success, and the proceeds donated from Xbox will be used to upgrade our lifesaving training facilities and replacement of critical lifesaving equipment."

Participants can access images from the event at http://www.xbox.com.au.

It's people. Xbox 360 is made out of people. They're making our console logos out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them! Oh wait. This isn't so bad. This is just a cool snap from the Xbox 360 Water Balloon Challenge that Joel "Mr. Executive" Johnson attended in Australia.

(Thanks for the heads up Mac!)

More Kotaku WBC 360 Coverage

To promote the upcoming water balloon fight (check Joel's liver's coverage), Microsoft Australia has done-up their site. One glaring problem, MSoft: sucky grammar. We're not ones to point and snicker, but even Crecente knows the difference between "your" and "you're." We're still working on teaching him "its" and "it's."

Update: The original site has been updated, and the grammar is now correcto.

Original Coverage [Waferbaby] Thanks, Joel!
Microsoft Can't Spell [Kotaku]

Here's what I gathered about the Xbox and 360 in Australia: Doing pretty well. So there's that. The overall numbers are pretty small—something like 30k units at launch—but we're talking about a country with 24 million people, so it's not too shabby. More impressive is the Live adoption rate: 40%. Major Nelson is suitably proud.

More Xbox Live news after the jump. (Spoiler: One of the games shown was not Street Fighter II. But the other one was.)

Asia Pacific honcho for Microsoft Alan Bowman gave us the numbers I wrote about oh-so-many words ago. He's got a lot to be happy about, as Xbox and Xbox 360 have done very well in his markets (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; Oh, and Australia) but for all that he still has his fair share of Kool Aid-fueled delusion. ("I think we're still on a path to success in Japan.")

There was a uncomfortable hush in the room after the more animated of the two enthusiasts from Hong Kong used the term "Gaystation" with inscrutable irony.

Major Nelson spoke for a bit about Xbox Live development. He said background downloading works in the lab—now they just have to figured out how to offer it in such a way that it doesn't erode the gaming experience. Since Microsoft is so adamant that 360 games work just fine without a hard drive, I don't see what the problem is! (Oooh, burned.)

They're also working on optimizing the Marketplace interface. It's not bad yet, but it's going to get crowded soon. No idea when that'll be pushed out, but I got the impression that it'll probably be a few months.

Ol' Nelson sort of flipped out when Gaystation asked why there wasn't a web browser available, polishing that old chestnut about "two foot" and "ten foot" experiences. That's fine. We get it. But could we just have the fucking browser (and mouse and keyboard support) and let us worry about the sub-optimal experience? Besides, don't you guys still sell WebTV boxes? (OMG, burned again.)

Anyway, you could tell it was a sore point. It must get frustrating to have to defend the indefensible as part of your job. (I know; I have to explain why we keep Crecente around all the time.)

Then they showed us games: Street Fighter II and Cloning Clyde.

SFII you know; I'm not going to get into it. But it's got online play and all that good stuff, including the typical Live Arcade achievements. Also, while perusing some of the internal documents handed to me by a staffer, I discovered an Easter egg: Playing the game all the way through once unlocks CPU Battle Mode. Or something like that—maybe you had to beat it with every character or something. Anyway, there's your gaming journalism, with secret internal documents and everything.

Cloning Clyde looks alright, though. It's a fighting/action platformer in side-scrolling 3D that includes a lot of puzzles that require you to make clones of your ass-baring-gown-wearing Clyde—each of which ('whom?' Such deep questions this art form engenders!) can be controlled one at a time to solve puzzles. But here's the best part: 8 player co-op mode. Hooray for co-op! (I didn't get a good picture of the gameplay. Sorry about that.)

Lastly, Major Nelson mentioned that the Xbox Live Marketplace Portfolio Manager has been trying to track down one Douglas E. Smith, the creator of Lode Runner. Apparently the Portfolio Manager really wants to get Lode Runner on Live—but they can't find the author, who holds the license. I told them our readers love a good challenge, so let's track down this Douglas E. Smith and let him know Microsoft wants to make him a lot of free money.

I'm serious. If you have any clues to his whereabouts (this Wikipedia article is a start), let me know. (joel@gawker)

Tomorrow: The water balloon fight!

Oh god, and I almost forgot. Being a savvy traveller, I picked up yesterday's jeans off the floor for another wear when a fucking spider fell out of them! I'm not freaked out by spiders, per se—they're one of my favorite species of fluid-filled robots—but I really, really don't like them in my pants.

Even worse, I popped a glass over him, intending to take a picture later to identify his species, and when I returned to my room-serviced room, the spider was gone. Will I find the desiccated husk of a maid inside the TV stand? Oh god, is it still in the room?

In between nervously eyeing the swaying fronds of Caucasian breeding stock on the dance floor, I enjoyed many animated conversations about the topic burning a hole through the lobes of Microsoft's best and brightest: Is the Revolution going to be 'awesome' or 'fucking awesome?'

Microsoft's Cesar Menendez commented how odd it was to see his name in a 'tab' on posts. If I had not been busy constructing a chitinous armor around my liver with the scaly flotsam of ruptured brain cells, I would have barked, "I believe you mean tags, sir. Tabs are what Microsoft's Internet Explorer Version 6 does not have!" Instead I ate a scallop covered in what appeared to be an exploded rabbit.

Now I have just gotten a call that says I have twenty minutes to post this, shower, and head to the lobby to travel to Microsoft AU. I bet I will be late.

• Price for in-room internet (100MB limit): $25AU per day.

• Price for use of hotel lobby Wi-Fi (100MB limit): $30AU per day, even if you already paid in your room.

I guess it just takes a lot more coal to ship all those packets down under by steamer tramp.

Also, I just paid $15AU for some slimy duck spring rolls that I could have gotten for $2 back home.

I'm sorry to tell you this, Australian Kotaku readers, but in America the greasy, fatty food is cheap and the Wi-Fi flows for free at even the lowliest roadside motels. I know you're a sovereign nation now and stuff, but maybe you should consider mounting a revolution anyway. I mean, you've already got all our fast food chains and penchant for too-tight clothing—might as well get it at our rock-bottom Yankee prices.

I managed to persuade a power plug in LAX to give me a little of that sweet electron nectar, exactly what my PSP needed to update its firmware. Until my PSP ran out of juice, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time playing Daxter (even though I hate jumping puzzles). For a game as generic in both gameplay and conceit, they sure do know how to spit shine what they've got.

The sun isn't even fully up here in Australia and all I can think of is how good a beer would be right about now. (Yes, that's a slight deviation from my normal 'beer-thirty'-heavy internal clock.) Considering I have no idea how to contact my Microsoft handlers—my GSM phone that should have the right frequencies still hasn't found a carrier—I might just make my first day in this country a saucy one. Now if I can only find a way to charge it to my room...

My cab driver, Dedi, says he doesn't have time to play videogames, because he works twelve hour days; The taxi company rents him a car for $120 AU per shift. Instead he plays badminton two times a week. I'd suggest he look into Crazy Taxi, but then I'd feel compelled to have him take me to a KFC just to make the game experience seem more valid.

Hey, I wonder if I can figure out a way to charge KFC to my room...

April 18th, 4:40P EST - I AIM'd Crecente before I left, "Probably a good time to break out the PSP again, huh?" Even though the battery life of the PSP isn't everything it could be, I figured between the PSP and the DS, I'd get a few hours of gaming in on the flight. Before I left for the airport, I rushed to my corner game store and bought a couple of games: Daxter and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. (In retrospect, I probably should have picked more dissimilar titles.)

Imagine my frustration as I popped in Daxter only to find that the game requires a firmware update to be playable—a firmware update that's impossible to do sitting here on my plane with no AC plug in sight. I'm sure the package gave me fair warning of the firmware version required. That makes the concept of updating firmware on a mobile gaming device no less infuriating.

So thanks for this, Sony. I just spent nearly a hundred bucks on new games for my PSP, but because of your stupid anti-piracy procedures—stubby flailings against the tide of free time graced in abundance to eastern European crackers—I'm carrying around three hundred dollars worth of useless hardware.

On the up side, I'll probably set a new personal Tetris DS best.