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At the Microsoft press conference, a tasty little tidbit was revealed concerning everyone’s favorite hyped-game-that-nobody’s-played, Alan Wake. Despite the game itself taking ten billion years to develop, Remedy is already looking at downloadable content for the game, with the story set to expand via DLC “episodes.”

The Xbox 360 exclusive will be “story-driven, like a TV series.” The game itself shall be broken into episodes when it launches, allowing an easy transition into extra, post-launch episodic chapters. It seems that Alan Wake will further its exposition in exactly the same was as the PS3’s Heavy Rain. 

Microsoft ED&D boss Robbie Bach calls Alan Wake “the TV show Lost, as written by Stephen King, and filmed by David Lynch.” Not that they’re overselling it or anything. 

Just three short years after the CES 2007 announcement that Microsoft’s Mediaroom software would turn your Xbox 360 into an IPTV set-top box, Microsoft is finally ready to deliver on that promise (and no, the 2008 BT rollout doesn’t count). “I’m happy to announce that later this year AT&T will also enable subscribers to U-verse to enjoy [the new Mediaroom 2.0] service on their Xbox 360 consoles,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his keynote audience. This was in addition to U-verse support for Windows 7 and Windows Mobile, though the details on all three platforms end there.

We’ll be digging for more details at CES this week, but this is certainly promising news for the country’s 2 million U-verse subscribers (and the “more than 20 million living units” that the service is purportedly available in).

Xbox 360 getting Mediaroom IPTV ‘later this year’ via AT&T U-verse … just three years late originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remedy’s Xbox 360-exclusive Alan Wake, described as “the TV show Lost, as written by Stephen King, and filmed by David Lynch,” by Microsoft Entertainment & Devices head Robbie Bach will — much like Fable II — be expanded upon via additional downloadable episodes. Bach made the announcement concerning the long-in-development title during the company’s CES 2010 keynote this evening, saying, “story-driven like a TV series, Alan Wake will be told in episodes with even more episodes available on Xbox Live after its launch this year.”

Let’s just hope Remedy isn’t taking cues from The Sopranos when deciding how long it will be between the release of the game’s episodes.

Alan Wake will stay up late with post-launch DLC ‘episodes’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a press release summing up Microsoft’s CES 2010 keynote that dropped just before Ballmer took the stage, the company will be releasing Project Natal in “holiday season 2010.” We heard earlier today about what year the future controller would be arriving, but now, folks, now we know during which group of months it’ll be arriving at retail.

The release explicitly states that the still-codenamed Natal project is “scheduled to be available in holiday season 2010,” adding that Natal “is only the most recent example of Microsoft’s work creating natural user interfaces.” With any luck, by E3 we’ll have an actual name and maybe even a specific month for when we’ll get to check it out at home! Until then, we’ll have to get by with the inspirational video about Natal’s origins created for today’s release, embedded above.

Microsoft says Project Natal coming ‘holiday season 2010′ originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just like Sony earlier this evening, we’re not going to be detailing all of Steve Ballmer’s 2010 CES press conference, that’s really Engadget’s thang. Instead, we’ll be bringing more details on all things gaming (think: leaked Xbox Game Room and Project Natal deets, anyone?) right back here. If you want the total experience, including lots of non-gaming stuff, venture forth, dear reader.

Microsoft 2010 CES press conference, live at Engadget originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tomorrow marks the debut of a new patch for the PlayStation 3 version of Rock Band 2. Y’know, the one that Xbox 360 owners have had for some time now? Uh huh. Well, it doesn’t really matter now; the update is almost upon us, and it’s got enough tweaks and additions to help ease the pain.

New Rock Band 2 PS3 features to look forward to include: the ability to sort by stars in Quickplay mode, an improved HO/PO system a la The Beatles: Rock Band, velocity sensitivity for those mad-expensive Ion Drum Kits, support for the Rock Band Network Store (which isn’t live yet), and also support for the wireless SingStar mics that can be found in Europe.

Again, this is obviously a bit on the late side, but Rock Band 2 is still very much a platform, and these improvements from Harmonix won’t go unappreciated.

Rock Band 2 PS3 Software Update [PlayStation.Blog]

If you’re just dying for the latest numbers coming out of Microsoft’s CES press conference, I’ve got you covered. Armchair market analysis was never as sexy as it is now.

Speaking to what I’m sure was a positively rapt audience, besweatered Microsoft CEO Steve “Bing” Ballmer explained that “nearly 10 million people have logged into Xbox Live’s nongaming applications” which include “Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm, Sky, Canal and Zune.” Those numbers become less impressive when you consider that a lot of those people probably logged on once to poke around and never returned to the services. Nevertheless, that’s a lot of Gold accounts — at $60 a year, Microsoft is looking at $600 million of revenue, not counting the ads that run on Xbox Live or Arcade sales. Woof.

There are also “39 billion Xbox 360s around the world,” surely cornering that burgeoning “global middle-class” in Zimbabwe. 500 million games have been sold, raking in what I assume is an impressive $20 billion at retail. I presume that Steve “Natural Interfaces” Ballmer is rather proud of his company, but I don’t really have a good frame of reference — I got into this gig because I like Mario, and all those zeroes make my eyes cross.

I’m sure we have some number crunchers in the audience though. Quick hit: do you guys have any financial predictions for Microsoft in 2010?

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.

Earlier in the day, Xbox Game Room was revealed to be a real thing. Microsoft’s Robbie Bach did a video interview with On10.net that was accidentally put up a little too soon. The video was taken down, but nothing ever really disappears from the grasp of the Internet!

So what is this all about? Game Room will have over 1000 old school classic games such as Centipede, Adventure and more being released over the next three years. You’ll be able to create a custom arcade rooms and challenge your friends in a number of games.

It’s odd that Microsoft is creating another channel for retro games when we already have Xbox Live Arcade. Perhaps Microsoft thinks the new channel will be more appealing to casual players. Game Room will be out this Spring for both the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live.

[Update: Game Room will launch this Spring with 30 arcade classics. Kotaku says games will range from 240 to 400 Microsoft points. Or, you can pretend it's the '80s all over again and buy the arcade games for just 40 Microsoft Points. And just like the '80s, once you die, you'll have to insert another 40 Points to play the game again.]