News: Xbox Live Game Room with classic arcades are coming

Save up all those Microsoft points, because they are going to be spent soon. It seems that Xbox really wants the Xbox Live Experience to be a full part of the 360's system, not just a flashy animated way to buy games and downloads.


One of the first announcements by Microsoft from CES (though leaked a couple of times earlier) was the addition of an 70's to 90's style arcade full of retro quarter munchers available for purchase from $2.50(240pts) to $5.00(400pts) each. The full purchase price gets you cross platform usage (360 + PC), while the lower price gets you either/0r for the same game. Or you can try a single play for $0.50(40). The game room itself is developed by a third party company, Krome Studios, who brought you Viva Piñata: Party Animals and Star Wars: Republic Heroes.


The actual arcade is a fully realised game room, and you can visit your friends rooms, or they can visit yours. Set to launch in Spring 2010, the game room itself will be free to download and will several features including:

• In-game voice chat
• Avatar support
• Cross-platform leaderboards
• Achievements
• Local 2 player support
• Onlive multiplayer for XBL Gold members [and we just lost Tim]

Joystiq.com has been following the story from CES, and has done several updates on it, along with posting a trailer video for the game room. If nothing else, it will look cool and give you some use for your avatar.