CES 2010: Project Natal dated, Xbox Live Game Room announced, Alan Wake gets episodic expansions @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 07, 2010

News: And this Spring's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 map pack will be released on Xbox Live first.

Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach delivered their annual keynote at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). While they delved into all things Microsoft, a good portion of their talk was focused on the Xbox 360.

Early in his speech, Ballmer touted the Xbox 360's sales figures, stating that over 39 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide along with over 500 million games. This sales dominance was especially evident during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day as Xbox Live experienced its busiest week ever, welcoming a new member every second and recording over 2.2. million concurrent members online.

Moving on to game announcements, Ballmer and Bach preferred to focus on things Microsoft has previously announced, but they did talk about a few new things as well as drop one big bombshell:

First up was the news that Alan Wake, Microsoft's mystery game that is structured like an episodic TV series such as "Lost", will be released this Spring. And like Heavy Rain, an episodic game coming to the PS3 next month, multiple "expansion" episodes will be released for Alan Wake on Xbox Live throughout the year.

Also coming this Spring will be the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 content packs. And like Activision did with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, this map pack will be available exclusively first on Xbox Live.

Microsoft's last surprise for the Spring is the new "Game Room" service. An extension of the Xbox Live Arcade, the Game Room will focus on classic arcade games (from companies like Activision, Atari, Intellivision, Konami and more). Players will be able to purchase games once and play them on both their Xbox 360 and Windows PC. Players will be able to populate their own personal game room with these titles and they'll be able to invite friends through Xbox Live to share their custom arcade.

New games will be released every week and 30 titles will make up the first batch of releases when Microsoft launches the service this Spring. The company is also boasting that over 1,000 "Game Room" games will be available to purchase in the next three years.

Finally, Ballmer and Bach's big CES bombshell was the news that Project Natal, Microsoft's hands-free "natural user interface" for the Xbox 360, will be released towards the end of the year. Although this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as Peter Molyneux's Fable III was said to use Natal extensively and it has always had a Fall 2010 release date.

There's still no word on exactly how much Natal will cost when it's released during the 2010 Holiday season.

We'll have more soon.