A CES video interview with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division has confirmed the Xbox motion tech will release this year for Xbox 360. Bach also confirms a new feature for 360 called the 'Xbox Game Room'.
While Project Natal was widely expected to be released this year, the 'Xbox Game Room' is something new to 360, which (via a Joystiq transcript) Bach describes as having a retro approach to reach a broader audience.
“It's interesting, there's a generation of people -- sort of my advanced, mature age [laughs] -- who grew up with a set of games like Centipede," Bach explained. "They look almost like casual, fun games today -- at the time they were high-end, edgy games -- and so Game Room is the idea of bringing that back to the market. And bringing that to a very broad audience.
"And I think what we're gonna find is that when people can get 30 or more of these games, they're gonna love it for the experience. 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!’ In a retro way. It's sort of like my daughter going to watch Journey. I'm like, this is a band that was playing when I was growing up. And she thinks it's a cool band and I like the music.
"And I think you're gonna have the same phenomenon with Game Room. We're gonna enjoy the games and they're gonna think it's cool. I think that's very powerful."
Microsoft's Channel 9 site accidentally posted the video interview early, which was quickly pulled. However you can still access the video here at time of writing.