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

Or Just install MAME on your computer

[Anonymous Coward]

...and play all those classics for free...

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

[Rogerborg]

It's easier when there's a "currency" thats the same everywhere.

Easier for who? It's impossible for Microsoft to do realtime conversion and show prices in your local currency? You know, since they have to do that any when when you "buy" points?

Re:Credit suck

[Mr_Silver]

Because of all the different currencies. Should everyone in Europe or Asia use dollar? Or should americans use euro or yen?

It's easier when there's a "currency" thats the same everywhere.

Whilst this is true, it also has the "nice" side effect of making it easier for them to bill more in countries that will tolerate it.

I don't know the exact pricing for points, but you could take the price of 1 point in the USA, convert to GBP (using a lousy exchange rate of course), add 17.5% for VAT and then throw an extra markup on top (because you just can) and reflect that in the price of a point in the UK.

So $10's worth of points in the USA at a poor exchange rate should be around £7 + VAT = £8.23. Yet they could get away with also charging £10. A nice 66% markup.

Net result, is that you can screw people in the UK over without them really realising that they're paying far more than they would in the USA - despite the fact that everything is served from servers in the USA and therefore there are no additional costs involved by doing business in the UK*.

(* or if there are, they've already been covered by the business elsewhere. It's not like this is a new country for Microsoft)

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.

Re:Credit suck

[Inda]

We know we're paying stupid money. But...

Amazon USA: 4000 points = $44.99 (£28.30) = $1.12 per 100 points
Amazon UK: 4200 points = £49.33 ($78.43) = $1.87 per 100 points

Ebay USA: 4000 points = $48.99 (£30.81) = $1.22 per 100 points
Ebay UK: 4200 points = £34.99 ($55.63) = $1.32 per 100 points

...no one pays full-whack for points. Ebay is kings for points in the UK and they're normally emailed as scanned jpegs within 5 minutes of payment.

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.

Re:A quarter?

[gsslay]

Of course it was the paying for every game that was half the fun! I can't tell you how many times I've finished playing a game on my Xbox with an empty feeling of disappointment, simply because I still have cash in my pocket. Now I won't have to immediately run out into the street and force coins on strangers in order to get that true arcade experience. Thank you Microsoft!

Of course, you'll will still be lacking the frisson of implied threat that you got from the shady character that stood in the dark corner of most arcades. Is he going to knife you, offer you drugs, or steal your cash? Either way, it added to the sense of heightened awarenesses necessary for a true arcade experience. Surely Microsoft can manage to replicate this?

AT&T's taunting me . . .

[indytx]

This would be awesome, clutter-reducing, wife-inspring news if Microsoft would support blu-ray on the Xbox. Then, we could get rid of both our POS cable box AND move our blu-ray player to another room AND (this next part is the holy grail of my house) have a good excuse to connect a console to our big flat screen in the living room. Woo-hoo!!! "Just ONE box connected to the TV, Honey!!!" . . . . "Yes, I KNOW it's a game console, but JUST ONE BOX!!!"

Eventually the "just one box" mantra would win out. F*** you, Microsoft, for not supporting blu-ray.

Re:Thank you.

[farlukar]

I wouldn't buy anything from Microsoft with a ten foot pole, even if they were on fire.

I don't think ten-foot poles are considered legal tender.

Re:10 foot poles

[Qzukk]

I think that somewhere in the Microsoft World of Fantasy, 40ft barge poles are probably legal tender.

In that world, everything costs 38 feet of bargepole.

Re:I liked it when it was called Virtual Console

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly did MS copy anything Nintendo did? MS Control system is camera based Nintendo is Gyro based. MS has been doing the Live arcade since before the Wii even was released in the US