Microsoft Announces Retro Game Room

Microsoft has announced a new major initiative at its Consumer Electronics Show press conference. The company plans to create a complex virtual environment called the “Game Room,” which is set to allow those using the Xbox 360 home gaming console and the PC to play a wide variety of older titles. Microsoft has also confirmed previous rumors that Project Natal, its motion tracking system, should be released during this year's holiday season.

Robert Bach, who is the Microsoft executive in charge of the project, has said that the “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.”

The Microsoft man hopes the idea will have a wide appeal, stating that “And it's not just you and I who are gonna love it. Even the people who would call themselves 'hardcore gamers' are gonna say, 'Oh wow, this is fun!”

It's not very clear how the Game Room will be presented but it seems that players will be able to inhabit an avatar and walk around while also trying a variety of older titles. In three years, Microsoft is planning to introduce 1,000 titles for the new game space and to also offer full leaderboard support shared between the PC and the Xbox 360.

Players can choose between paying 240 to 400 Microsoft Points to buy a title or they can use a one-time fee of 40 Microsoft Points to play each of the games just once, just in an arcade cabinet.

Game Room appears to be part of the software giant’s strategy, which took form in 2008 and 2009, of targeting more than hardcore players with its console, offering smaller titles via the Xbox Live and emphasizing the multimedia capabilities of its gaming device.