Xbox Live Arcade Challenge

via eurogamer

Microsoft has announced the "Xbox Live Arcade Challenge", set to run between 17th and 30th December, which will see players competing in Lumines Live! and Small Arms for big-screen televisions, Xbox hardware and other prizes.

The Lumines Live! challenge will run from 17th to 23rd December and see players competing in the Time Attack 60-second mode, with the top 105 people on the leaderboard as of 12:01am GMT on 24th December. Perfect Christmas present!

Small Arms will also produce 105 winners based on ranked match activity between 24th and 30th December, with the leaderboards reset beforehand. A minute past midnight on the 31st, the winners for that will be drawn. Happy New Year!

They're not bad prizes, either, with a 42" Hitatchi UltraVision Plasma TV for the overall winner of each tournament, and four runners-up getting bundles of HD-DVD player, wireless steering wheel and wireless headset. The 100 after that, in each case, will get 500 Microsoft points.

In order to take part, it looks like you'll have to pre-register over at Xboxlivetournament.com, which doesn't appear to be quite ready to accept your sign-up at the time of writing - but don't worry, you can always read the US rules and FAQ in the meantime.

And doubly don't worry, because Microsoft UK assures us that it will be open to European gamers as well.