CES 2010: Ballmer keynote reveals Natal definitely out in 2010, 39 million Xbox 360s sold

One or two interesting revelations, but nothing we weren’t expecting…

It all started with Gary Shapiro, president of the CES, reminding us of the apparent awesomeness of Microsoft’s 2009. Bing (hmm…), Windows 7 (fair enough) and cloud computing (really?) were all flagged up, before Microsoft chief exec Steve Ballmer himself took the stage.

His immediate focus was “screens everywhere”, which again was a reference to the cloud but, in some small part, a reference to the increasing portability of Xbox Live’s entertainment services – i.e. Facebook, Twitter and Zune.

“In 2009, we had a stream of blockbuster games and we changed the face of social entertainment”, he stated, also reminding us there are now 39 million Xbox 360s around the world, which is more than $20 billion in console sales. Blimey.

He finished this segment only by saying 2010 would bring ‘other surprises’ and, obviously, some blockbuster games.

Next, Ballmer firmly confirmed that Natal will be available in “holiday season” 2010, and then the only other nugget of note was the announcement of Live’s Game Room, which will enjoy a release of over 1000 classic arcade games on Xbox Live over the next three years.

Then Robbie Bach showed up and said Alan Wake’s going to be really good. Though as Microsoft’s President of the Entertainment and Devices Devision, he would, wouldn’t he?