The holidays are on their way and the console wars appear to be going full tilt. If you're keeping a tally, Microsoft just announced that the Xbox video game system has surpassed the 1 million mark in shipments, with 1.1 million units "sold-in" to retailers. The big M says that, on average, gamers are purchasing several Xbox games when they buy an Xbox, which stands to reason unless they want a really expensive DVD player. The most popular games so far include "Halo," "Project Gotham Racing," and "NFL Fever 2002" from Microsoft, as well as "Dead or Alive 3" from Tecmo, Electronic Arts' "Madden NFL 2002," and Activision's "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x." Microsoft plans to ship at least 300,000 additional units into North American retailers through the end of year, putting the system on target with Microsoft's goal of delivering 1 million to 1.5 million units for the calendar year. In contrast, as of December 4th, Nintendo said it had shipped 600,000 Gamecubes.