A post on GigaOm a few days ago questioned if Halo 3 would help Microsoft secure the digital living room. Well now we have a firm date that we’ll start to find out for sure: September 25th.

I happen to think the Xbox 360 is doing enough even before the release – especially when compared with the Apple TV. As we speak I’m downloading a program for my Mac called Connect 360, which is supposedly going to make it so I can easily sync my Mac with my 360 (I’ll follow up in this post on it later).

Not only will this negate Apple’s advantage of streaming from your computer to your living room – but it supposedly will do it with videos all the way up to 1080p resolution, easily besting Apple TV’s barely-even-utilized 720p.

Also today comes word that Toshiba is about to start offering a $100 rebate on HD-DVD players, meaning you’ll be able to get one for under $300. This too could help the 360 if the price reduction kick-starts HD-DVD sales and the inclination continues for people to buy a HD-DVD compatible 360 over the Blu-ray compatible PS3.

Apple and Sony better start making some moves soon. Microsoft could have the digital living room in their grasps even before September, when at least 4 million people (and probably a lot more) will be booting up their 360s…