At Microsoft’s CES 2010 Keynote address tonight a significant portion of time was dedicated to the much anticipated Project Natal.   Microsoft’s President of Entertainment and Devices division, Robbie Bach concluded the technically-delayed presentation with a focused presentation on upcoming XBOX 360 innovations and title announcements.

Bach discussed the anticipation that 2010 would be a landmark year for the platform and proceeded to discuss various innovations and upcoming game titles such as “Alan Wake” – a psychological action thriller game, “Splinter Cell: Conviction” – a sequel to the popular series, and “Halo:Reach” – which was accompanied by a reportedly adrenaline-filled trailer.

Netflix and Facebook on XBOX Live functionality were discussed as well as the XBOX Live Game Room – a classic arcade experience with titles that can be played on both the Xbox as well as your PC.

Also, Project Natal for XBOX 360 was introduced to the crowd.  Bach stated that this project is the culmination of 30 years of studying natural user interfaces or “NUI’s”.   For those who are not familiar this is Microsoft’s in-development controller-free gaming and multimedia interface for the game console.  The interface sensor is capable of full-body 3D motion capture, but facial recognition, voice recognition, and advanced gesture recognition. 

Descriptions can’t do it justice so for the curious, the video @ http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/ will have to suffice (in addition to previous E3 demonstrations) since the announcement was accompanied by a brief but detailed video trailer that followed the ongoing development of the Project Natal system.  One question that was answered on Project Natal was that it would be “available this Holiday, 2010”, but we still do not have a price announcement.   NO PRICE YET..