Today's Microsoft CES keynote is likely to make mention of the arrival of the Xbox Game Room, a retro-themed game space, at least according to a video interview with Microsoft's Robbie Bach, president of the company's Entertainment and Devices Division.
More specifically, that's from the quickly pulled video, originally posted on Microsoft's On10.net and Channel 9 video blogs. In that video, Bach is said to have discussed a "one stop shop for retro games," according to a tipster who saw the video before it was pulled.
If true, that sure sounds a lot like the Atari and Intellivision game-filled arcade populated with Xbox Live Avatars that leaked in a survey late last year. At the time, the names RetroCade, RetroGame, Game Preserve, Game Gallery, Tower of ROM, Tower of Game(s), Classics and Classics LIVE were all competing against what sounds like the final winner, Game Room.
Microsoft's CES keynote is scheduled to kick off at 6:30 PM PST. We'll be liveblogging the event from the show, so check back to see just how much of a rumor this really is.
Thanks to Ian for the heads up!
Update: Looks like the video interview wasn't fully removed. Bach does confirm the Game Room addition to Xbox 360.
"It's sort of a retro approach. It's interesting, there's a generation... who grew up with a set of games like Centipede," Bach says of Xbox Game Room. "They look almost like casual, fun games today, at the time, they were high-end, edgy games. So Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market."
He also describes the Xbox Game Room as "like my daughter going to watch Journey." Hopefully that actually means Journey the video game will be playable.
"They look almost like casual, fun games today, at the time, they were high-end, edgy games. So Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market."
:lolQuote"They look almost like casual, fun games today, at the time, they were high-end, edgy games. So Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market."
so they'll be expensive?
(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/10/xbox-live-retrocade.jpg)
This is Gazunta's baby, I am excited to see how it is.
If they add Achievements, my generation is doomed.:lolQuote"They look almost like casual, fun games today, at the time, they were high-end, edgy games. So Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market."
so they'll be expensive?spoiler (click to show/hide)undoubtedly. :'([close]
I'm not sure I was supposed to mention that... lolHis Twitter feed says he's excited.
Xbox Gaming and “Project Natal”
Xbox plays a multifaceted role in Microsoft’s digital entertainment strategy from gaming to changing the face of social entertainment, and Bach highlighted exciting plans for 2010:
• An lineup of what promises to be blockbuster exclusive games including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, Crackdown 2, Mass Effect 2, Alan Wake, and Fable 3
• The release of what will likely be the biggest game of the year, Halo Reach, continuing the Halo saga
• The new Game Room on Xbox LIVE, which will be the place to relive the glory days of arcade games, with over 1000 games being released throughout the next three years.
Then Bach gave a behind-the-scenes look at the work behind “Project Natal,” the controller-free gaming experience that tracks movement of the body and facial expressions, and even responds to your voice.
Scheduled to be available in holiday season 2010, “Project Natal” is only the most recent example of Microsoft’s work creating natural user interfaces.
It is free to download “Game Room,” which you can then populate with classic arcade games available for individual purchase. Buy games once and play on both an Xbox 360 system and a Windows-based PC for 400 Microsoft Points. Or, to purchase a game for only one platform, each individual Xbox 360 or Windows-based PC title is 240 Microsoft Points. You also have the option to pay to play a single game, just like dropping two quarters in the slot in the old arcades, for 40 Microsoft Points. Visit your friends’ “game rooms” and try their games free before you buy.
From the video it seems like Natal will be 30 fps and doesn't seem to do a good job at picking up fine details :-\Natal's been repeatedly downgraded since the original kits to make it not hella expensive. Though it was accurate, supposedly the SDKs weren't ready to handle multiple people well. Still makes it freak the fuck out.
so basically natal is turning into the wii
Krome has nothing to do with the pricing.
jokes, man
Krome has nothing to do with the pricing.
I never said it did dipshit
Natal HD coming in 2012, promises true 1:1 60fps multi-user motion tracking*.
*black people still not supported
Also, :lol at being able to play the games like a real arcade, 40 points a pop. I'd rather buy the whole game, thanks.
yep, it's been gimp'tYeah, that was dropped around 4 months ago. Now the only advantage it has over the PSEye is the IR lens.
http://kotaku.com/5442458/report-microsoft-drops-natal-chip
now that it's the eyewii no one's going to go through the hassle of adding the functionality to their games,interest dissolving
they should have just held off and launched it with their next system
Also, :lol at being able to play the games like a real arcade, 40 points a pop. I'd rather buy the whole game, thanks.
....
the fuck, microsoft?
Given the choice between arcade-style pricing, buying the game, and buying the game for PC and X360, I'll go for the latter, honestly. That's just me...yep, it's been gimp'tYeah, that was dropped around 4 months ago. Now the only advantage it has over the PSEye is the IR lens.
http://kotaku.com/5442458/report-microsoft-drops-natal-chip
now that it's the eyewii no one's going to go through the hassle of adding the functionality to their games,interest dissolving
they should have just held off and launched it with their next system
Also, :lol at being able to play the games like a real arcade, 40 points a pop. I'd rather buy the whole game, thanks.
....
the fuck, microsoft?
I think the pricing is quite reasonable.
40 points translates to a 50 cent play like in an arcade. (Trash panic on the PSN has this feature in Japan)
240 for the game.
400 for the game on both platforms.
Normally I complain about MS, but this seems fine to me.
not to be all demi but, uh, these games are free on the PC, guysTons of things are free on PC :D,but people still pay for them on consoles.
yep, it's been gimp'tI'd guess that it'll be part of their next system as well, probably packed in and better supported in hardware. Yes, this is half-assed, but whatevs. What kills me from the article you provided is:
http://kotaku.com/5442458/report-microsoft-drops-natal-chip
now that it's the eyewii no one's going to go through the hassle of adding the functionality to their games,interest dissolving
they should have just held off and launched it with their next system
According to Games Industry, the majority of the processing chip work will be done by one of the three main Xenon processors. A percentage will be lost, but most games don't use a hundred percent of processing power.:rofl ~ Which games are these? XBLA titles? It's not games like Gears or Smackdown or Bayonetta. Yeah, I know those are unlikely to benefit from a vastly revised control scheme, and nobody wants to see Sho Nuff or A Slime Appears shakin' it like Bayonetta. But it's really not clear where this blasé conscription of 15% of the processing is going to get them into developers' hearts.
"Patching up older games to run with the new hardware now looks rather unlikely unless they have the CPU time to spare, but hopefully this will serve to focus developers on Natal-specific concepts as opposed to revisiting old classics."Here again, I'm wondering which fairy-magic-powered titles these are which the devs would be willing to spend money to support Natal so the Pre-Owned copies being re-re-re-sold at Gamestop would be able to use it. Or is this for all the people who bought and held onto the games because they liked them enough to do so BUT also want to try them out with an added-after-the-fact control scheme? ???
According to MS 70-80% of worldwide publishers are working on Natal games,so prepare to be flooded with cheap, casual titles.Fixed.
needs pinball machines
In case you missed out on the announcement back in January, Game Room is Microsoft's new platform for emulated games of yesteryear. It'll be able to handle old arcade games as well as classic consoles, and the Game Room shell will be a free download when it hits this March as a part of Microsoft's "Block Party" promotion for Xbox Live Arcade.
Of course, you won't be able to do very much with that free shell. The whole point is that the Game Room is a place for you to purchase and download old arcade, Intellivision, and Atari 2600 games. Or, at least, that's the plan so far based on the companies that have currently signed on and allowed their catalogs to appear in Game Room. In the future, it's possible that more older games could appear, and without prompting, the spokesman I interviewed mentioned the Dreamcast. That's obviously not a confirmation, but I was left with the impression that Game Room could have a pretty wide scope, once the really old stuff is out of the way.
So far, Intellivision, Atari, Konami, and Activision are on-board, which translates into a lot of Atari 2600 and Intellivison games, as well as some arcade games from Atari and Konami. I went through and played a few games, like Pitfall!, Super Cobra, Astrosmash, and Shao-Lin's Road. The emulation seems fine and it's complete, right down to the games' boot-up sequences and the need to insert fake coins to play. You can view the action in different ways, to, like an arcade-like view that shows the artwork that surrounded the monitor on some arcade games. In this view, you can also see a slight curve to the monitor, and Centipede had vertical scanlines, matching the original. If you want a clearer view, you can get a zoomed-up view with no scanlines, which maintains the proper aspect ratio for the original games.
Game Room utilizes save states, letting you pause a game and pick it up again later. But you can also use this to rewind time in your games. If you're not playing a ranked match, which is the only way to put your score up on the online leaderboards, you can hold down the left trigger at any point to start rewinding your mistakes. In these unranked games, you're also given full access to the arcade machine's original DIP switches, the Atari 2600's difficulty switches, and the full options of an Intellivison game. Playing Intellivision games also lets you call up the full gamepad, complete with overlay.
You can also view save states from the leaderboard, letting you see how the top players play. The save state system also plays into Game Room's challenge system, which allows you send specific challenges to up to seven of your friends. These can be simple high-score battles, but you can also force the challengers to start at a specific point in the game and configure a host of other options, like the number of times a player can attempt a challenge or how many days the challenge will last. This means that you don't need to actually get everyone together at the same time to start up a challenge, which is a necessary touch.
Microsoft is claiming that it will add seven new games per week, and players that purchase games on the first day will get a little bonus mascot that can be placed inside the Game Room's virtual arcade. Mascots include things like a vector-based tank from Battlezone, or Pitfall Harry. If you don't show up on the first day to make your purchase, Microsoft plans to make the mascots available separately for a small fee. Let me just state here that I think that paying for mascots for your virtual arcade is crazy talk... but it was kind of cool to see all of the little things running around on their own while cruising from room to room.
Finally... a front-end that will let you play Jungler.
Finally... a front-end that will let you play Jungler.
Game Room will have 60 achievements worth 1,000 points. But those points aren't tied to any specific game. Instead, they're tied to medals that you can earn by playing your purchased games. There are nine medals per game, and they're broken up into three tiers of three medals each. This means each game will have a high score challenge, each will have a "time spent" medal for simply playing the game, and so on. I glanced over the achievement list, and it looks like those are also broken up into tiers, with at least a few devoted to your overall time spent in Game Room. So if/when you reach the 36-hour mark, you'll get points for doing so.
While I didn't stare at it long enough to know for sure, the emulation in Game Room appears to be competent and accurate to the original games. All of the emulation work is being handled by Krome Studios, who is also developing the front-end and avatar environment.
Commercialized emulation has always been a tricky business, since the rampant availability of old games online means that everyone else is competing with the low, low cost of "free." The Game Room wrapper has some interesting ideas in it that shine up the experience and might just make this stuff worth paying for. The fixed cost of three dollars per game (with an additional two dollars if you want to play your games on both a 360 and a PC) seems reasonable, too. That said, the lack of proper online play in two-player games like Outlaw is an already-visible omission that means the Game Room still has plenty of room to grow.