Microsoft Announces "Game Room," Confirms Natal For Late 2010

Microsoft has confirmed that their upcoming motion-control system, Natal, will be released during the 2010 holiday season. The announcement was made during CES, alongside news of "Game Room," a service that will act like a virtual arcade, bringing classic games to users of the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live. It's due out this spring with 30 games to start, and will gradually ramp up to over a thousand titles. According to Kotaku, "You can buy a game for between 240-400 Microsoft Points, or if you really want that old arcade feeling, you can pay 40 Microsoft Points and play the game once, like it was 1985 and you'd just dropped a quarter." Another interesting bit of news is that subscribers to AT&T's U-Verse will soon be able to use the Xbox 360 as their set-top box.

Comments

screw your "points"

[Anonymous Coward]

we all know that "points" means a way of sidestepping a nations currencys real worth
the whole thing is seedy and scammy
i guess MS must really be desperate

Re:screw your "points"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded troll? That's pretty much the reason why all those virtual currency providers do it: to hide the fact that you are spending real money.

Spending 2 Fun Points on something trivial is much less painful than directly seeing that it actually costs 2 €. Yes, customers are this easy to manipulate.

Re:screw your "points"

[dangitman]

I don't like the idea of such points and don't use them myself but the reason they're used isn't based on being seedy or scammy. It is based on practicality.

So, why isn't the ratio of points to real currency 1:1? The only reason for that is to be scammy and underhanded. They could always just use real currency denominations, and set a minimum transaction amount - such as the Playstation Network's "wallet funding" which works in real dollars.

Credit suck

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Why can't I pay with real money instead of fake money which I can only buy in certain quantities so that I will always have left over fake money.

That's the second reason why I won't buy anything from Games for Windows Live Market. The first reason is that I don't trust Microsoft to keep that service running.

Re:Credit suck

[Anonymous Coward]

are you really that stupid?

Re:Credit suck

[SharpFang]

Matter of getting you accustomed to using their "pay-back" currency which only they accept. In case you win something, earn something with them, get your purchase cashed back or whatever, you could normally demand they pay you the same currency you paid in the first place. Which then you could take and spend at their competitor's. In case of Microsoft Points, every time -they- owe -you- anything, they are sure their money will eventually return to them.

A quarter?

[DianeOfTheMoon]

Only Microsoft could charge you $.50 to make you feel like you dropped a quarter. I swear these guys could nickel-and-dime nickels and dimes.

Mod parent up

[argent]

+1 Funny, +1 Insightful, +1 Inevitable.

Given that YOU paid for the frigging arcade machine already, and YOU paid for the floor space, they should cost *less* to play than Pac Man or Dig Dug. Not more.

Re:Mod parent up

[jeffmeden]

Not to mention the fact that Microsoft has no problem with you paying up front for the software and playing it as much as you want. Honestly, why bag on this feature when it's basically a full featured demo of the game for a fraction of a dollar? If you don't like the game, you can take your coins elsewhere; when else has browsing through titles been that affordable? (aside from either pirating, or an actual arcade?)

Re:Or Just install MAME on your computer

[pandrijeczko]

Actually, you'd need to break into an arcade machine museum to play them since I doubt many amusement arcades would hold such games as original Space Invaders, Defender, Mr. Do, etc.

Incidentally, the reason why there is a demand for retrogaming is because of the people who give their time freely to making emulators like MAME, UAE (for the Commodore Amiga) and many others, as well as those who dump old arcade ROMs and old home computer tapes & disks.

Yes, it's probably "illegal" in the strictest definition but they are also preserving old stuff that just isn't sold any more - and because of the interest they've created in the first place, this allows the likes of Microsoft to charge for it.

Re:Or Just install MAME on your computer

[Anonymous Coward]

they are also preserving old stuff that just isn't sold any more

.. I think the point is that this stuff *IS* now to be available legally again.

-1 Illegal

[Namarrgon]

Or did you buy original copies of all those game ROMs you're playing for "free"?