MS: Natal wont hurt our core focus

The mass-market friendly Project Natal may be grabbing all the headlines, but Microsoft insists it won’t lose sight of the core gamer audience.

There’s a slew of major titles due from the platform holder this year, including Alan Wake, Crackdown 2, Halo: Reach and Fable III. And Microsoft’s European Xbox boss Chris Lewis has told MCV that this line-up – combined with Natal – will make 2010 the biggest year in Xbox history.

From the beginning, Xbox has always had a very deliberate strategy to focus on core gamers and then expand the market,” said Lewis.

Project Natal is meant to complement, not replace, the experiences on Xbox 360. We’ve reached new heights in creating a more natural and responsive gaming and entertainment experience for people of all interests and skill levels, whilst maintaining our commitment to deliver quality core games that consistently exceed expectations.”

Lewis also stated that the 360 still has at least five years of life left in it, and that Natal will push the machine to new heights when it arrives this year.

There is nothing like Project Natal available in entertainment and with us not even halfway through the 360 lifecycle, we’re confident that our 30 million owners will be as excited about this new way to play as we are,” he added

2010 is set to be the biggest in Xbox history and a major year for the games industry, where we will witness a fundamentally change in the way we experience and share entertainment with each other.”

MCV reported last year that Project Natal is on-course for a November release in Europe, with a possible price point of around 50.