CES ‘10: Microsoft Copy Home, Natal Releasing This Year
The PlayStation Home experience is where I know I spend most of my time. I love that when I’m not dancing, I can go to those virtual arcades and play rad retro games whilst people see my funky boo-weasel avatar. I’m down with the kids. Wikkie. Apparently so are Microsoft who are launching their newest cash grab; Xbox Game Room.
It’s a virtual arcade where you can re-live the classics (not that you will actually like 90% of them, or that you can’t get get them all for free on the internet). But wait, there’s more! You can pay money to make your arcade, that you can invite your friends over to play in, look just how you want (for a fee)! Games will cost between 240 and 400 MS points, and just to hammer home their point they want your cash, you can pay 40 MS points and rent the game for a single play.
I’ll put this in the same pile as Facebook and Twitter on the 360 I think. Incidentally those ignored apps were refereed to as changing “the face of social entertainment”. Sure Microsoft, you keep telling yourself that.
Microsoft also announced they’ve paid enough money to Infinity Ward to block PS3 users from getting the new Modern Warfare 2 content packs for a while. 360 players have got themselves some “timed exclusive” content (I’ll go out on a limb and assume by exclusive, they mean PC too).
Finally we heard about the ground-breaking (and totally hardcore/going to beat the Wii to your mum’s attention) Project Natal, which has a release data of November 2010. It’s the future.
I guess it does more than the Avatar pets.. that’s an improvement, I guess. Nothing to write home about, though.
If this opens the doors for more arcade games outside of the listed “classics”(Sea Battle WTF?) though that would be fun to play with friends, I’m okay with that.
My HD can’t handle this. Why am I expected to upgrade to a new memory device every one-and-a-half fucking years? Fucksake.
CES award for the most craptacular product announcement? Seriously Microsoft, you could not have made something that I would want less than this.
“CASUAL GAMERS, HEY LOOK OVER HERE!!!!!!11″.
This is almost as bad as having Taylor Swift sing a song at your press conference.
I’m actually perfectly happy with the game room announcement. If it’s well tended (1000 titles in pipeline), easy to set up score challenges with all titles carrying their own achievements (both confirmed) and well presented I’ll be perfectly happy to chuck the odd few hundred points at it.