We got a tip from one of our friends in Southeast Asia that gave us an idea of how the darker side of the console war is being waged there. It currently looks to be a square-off between the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Xbox 360 in the pirate market.

According to our source, modded Xbox 360 consoles have been available in the Philippines for some six months now, which was followed by the Wii whose modded versions started shipping barely two months ago in the country. Amazingly, the Wii is slightly more expensive than Microsoft's game machine. This may be attributed to the short supply of the console in the global market.

Our source says that a basic modded Wii package that includes the console and five pirated games of the buyer's choice sells at an average price of about 20,000 pesos depending on the customer's bargaining skills. That's roughly US$ 400, which is significantly pricier than the un-modded ones that we have in the U.S.

If you're really into the machine, you can shell out 22,000 pesos, or about US$ 440 to get the fully loaded package. It includes all the accessories and 20 bootlegged games of your choice.

The Xbox 360 is a little closer in terms of its legitimate price point stacked up with the modded one. The basic package, which is very similar to what you get with the Core model here, sells for 19,000 pesos (US$ 402) and comes with just one controller and five pirated games. If you want the total package, you can get the one that sells for 23,000 pesos (US$ 486) where the dealer will gladly give you the unit, two controllers, headsets, 20 games of your choice, a 20GB hard drive, and a dandy cooling fan. The tipster said the pirates are working on a system that will allow owners of bootlegged games to access Xbox Live.