Money Matters, Simplified.
Microsoft to release “Game Room” and Project Natal during 2010
Microsoft on Wednesday finally confirmed the long standing rumors that it will be releasing its motion-sensing Project Natal interface for the Xbox 360 consoles during holiday season 2010.
by Priyanka - January 7, 2010 - comments
The company announced that it is also developing a retro themed “Game Room” (quite similar to Sony’s PlayStation home) for the PC as well as the console that will release sometime in spring.
The announcements were supposed to be a surprise at CES, but the news got leaked earlier in the day via a video interview in which president of Microsoft's Entertainment division, Robbie Bach, was talking about them.
In the leaked interview, Bach said, "Game Room in some ways is sort of a retro approach. There's a generation of people...who grew up with a set of games like Centipede. ...Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market, and bringing that to a very broad audience."
Microsoft’s “Game Room” service
The Game Room for Xbox 360 will allow users to arrange and customize their own virtual arcade by buying classical arcade games such as “Atari’s Tempest”.
This service will allow users to download classic games, just like Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Virtual Console for Wii Archives let their consumers do. However, unlike those services, Game Room will allow its users to access the games by using Xbox 360 Avatar through a 3-D virtual world interface.
Each game will cost $5, allowing users to play them on their Windows PC and Xbox 360. One can also pay $3 to play on a single platform.
There’s also an option of ‘pay-per-play’ that will allow players to demo a game once for 50 cents. Initially, the service will be launched with just 30 games this spring. Microsoft said that the number of games will increase up to 1,000 within three years, with multiple games to be added every week.
People’s reaction to Microsoft’s announcement
Online community of readers does not seem much impressed with the announcement Microsoft made.
An online reader kanone wrote on 1up.com, “So what happens to the people who bought these so called classic arcade games already for the 360? Does this mean we need to re-buy centipede and stuff to play it? Or buy an additional "cabinet".”
Another reader Trox3985 posted on the same site, “You would have to be a complete moron to pay for this. I don’t know what Microsoft is thinking this is not going to work. Why should I pay to play a game I bought? That is just stupid. I think the idea of a virtual arcade is cool but I don't wanna pay every time I play my own games.”