Microsoft Announces "Game Room," 2010 Natal Release Date

**Valigarmander** · 01-06-2010, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Though the surprises were sprung a little early from a quickly-pulled interview video, Microsoft's keynote tonight at the Consumer Electronics Show confirmed some long-standing rumors of coming services for the Xbox 360. The big announcement of the night had to be the new "Game Room," which had been spotted in consumer surveys last year. The Game Room is a virtual arcade for Avatars to arrange and customize, featuring classic arcade games in models of their original cabinets. Konami, Atari, and Intellivision are on-board to support the service, and new games will be launching every week after the initial launch this spring. Arcade cabinets will cost between 240 and 400 Microsoft Points ($3-5), or can be played once for 40 MS Points (50 cents).

We also finally got official confirmation that Natal is due in the holiday season of 2010. This isn't exactly surprising, since everyone from industry analysts to developers and publishers have been talking about a holiday release. But it does mean we'll probably see its finalized name and any game reveals coming sometime soon, possibly at E3 in June.

A few other gaming-related tidbits were dropped during the presentation. Owners of Halo 3: ODST will get access to the Halo Reach beta in spring. And, not to be outdone by Sony's 3D push, the company showed off Batman: Arkham Asylum running in 3D on a gaming PC. Check out a few more keynote videos below.

***Cosmonautical*** · 01-08-2010, 02:44 AM

The whole recent push for stereoscopic 3D kind of cracks me up. I got a pair of LCD shutter glasses nearly a decade ago now. Haven't been able to use it with newer games since it was designed for a CRT screen, but it's pretty funny to see these companies jumping on the ball so late in the game.

Kargath · 01-08-2010, 08:31 AM

Part of the interest is that people want to sell new hardware, and the other part is that graphics have gotten to the stage that current systems can do 'good enough' and spare power can be put to things like rendering twice every frame (which a stereoscopic projection needs)

01-08-2010, 02:44 AM	#2
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,102 Thanks: 2,157 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	The whole recent push for stereoscopic 3D kind of cracks me up. I got a pair of LCD shutter glasses nearly a decade ago now. Haven't been able to use it with newer games since it was designed for a CRT screen, but it's pretty funny to see these companies jumping on the ball so late in the game.

01-08-2010, 08:31 AM	#3
Kargath et in Arcadia ego Join Date: Jul 2001 Gender: Posts: 8,334 Thanks: 1,226 Thanked 780 Times in 488 Posts	Part of the interest is that people want to sell new hardware, and the other part is that graphics have gotten to the stage that current systems can do 'good enough' and spare power can be put to things like rendering twice every frame (which a stereoscopic projection needs)