Microsoft capped off the important gaming-related festivities tonight at CES with their keynote, and a myriad of Xbox 360-related goodness was brought to light. Aside from the announcements of Xbox Game Room for this spring and Project Natal this holiday, gamers have a few other notable additions to look forward to in the next 12 months.
AT&T's popular U-Verse TV service will be getting implemented into the Xbox 360 platform later this year in the U.S. No release date was mentioned, but one could assume that you'll naturally have to have a separate subscription to the cable provider to enjoy it, even though that also was not confirmed. The console's long-awaited IPTV service is finally getting realized further; Europe has a customized version Sky TV as of last fall.
In gaming news, Remedy's Alan Wake is still on track for this spring (probably May), and it was revealed that more DLC episodes/chapters to continue the writer's story will be available later this year over LIVE. Given the TV episode structure of the game's narrative, these will surely work quite well and keep players coming back. We're sure to hear more on that in the coming months; likely at E3.
Now we come to Modern Warfare 2. Though nothing in the way of a major revelation about the shooter's DLC was made, it was reaffirmed that the first DLC packs will hit this spring -- both exclusive to Xbox LIVE for a short time. Infinity Ward announced this move last year at E3. No word on what they'll contain yet, but it's safe to say multiplayer maps and Spec Ops missions are a lock for potential content to keep the game going this year.
Pimping some console statistics, CEO Steve Ballmer stated that there's now "39 million Xbox 360s around the world," with 500 million 360 titles having been sold since launch in 2005. "Nearly 10 million people have logged into Xbox Live's nongaming applications -- Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm, Sky, Canal and Zune," he also said; it's been stated that there's roughly 20 million LIVE subscribers total. Considering that most of those features require Gold subscriptions, that's a pretty good amount of revenue they're taking in yearly, too.
Hit the jump to see the entire Microsoft conference; it's almost like being there, except not, and a few hours later. Silverlight required.
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