Round-Up: German Chips, Japanese Balls, Californian Worlds

Today's round-up includes German technology for the Xbox 360, the return of a cosmic friend, and big money in MMOs. - Infineon Technologies AG announced that the Munich, Germany-based company will be supplying three major components for the Xbox 360 console. Infineon will be producing the wireless controlpad, a security chip, and a ‘solid-state memory unit product’ – AKA a memory card. "Today, customers require a system view to technology development in order to achieve increased performance, lower cost and a higher level of integration. Infineon is taking this system design approach to bring more value to its key customers," said Infineon’s Peter Bauer, vying for the ‘most abstract comment about technology’ prize. - From the less hardware, more software department, Namco Hometek revealed today that We Love Katamari, the sequel to the 2004 cult hit Katamari Damacy, has gone gold in North America. The new game features a new two-player cooperative mode, an expanded battle mode, and a new storyline that fleshes out the background of everyone’s favorite King of All Cosmos. - Blizzard's PC MMO World of WarCraft has surpassed 1 million subscribers in North America alone, the company announced today. This makes the game’s worldwide subscription base some 4 million users, easily the largest MMO in the world. It should be noted that Blizzard includes those who bought the boxed game with its one month free trial within that list, but does exclude those playing under free promotions. Also updated today, product news including Alias' shipping of MotionBuilder 7, and the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Blue Fang Games, Gameloft New York, Gas Powered Games, JAMDAT Mobile, and The Art Institute of Las Vegas.