CES 2011: Microsoft Full Showing

Microsoft brought every thing and its grand mother to this year's CES 2011 and ROQ was here to capture it all! From transforming tablet PCs, and a preview of the next version of Windows, to the Xbox Kinect's newest features and up dates, there was a lot to show and more in between. Hit the jump to read more!

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, took the CES stage to show off some of Microsofts current and upcomming products of 2011. The show started with some number touting by Microsoft on the Kinect and Xbox 360. Ballmer stated that the Kinect has exceeded their expectations of 5 million and has sold over 8 million units world wide.

Then the Xbox 360 numbers came rolling in, with Ballmer stating that the Xbox 360 has been the leading console domestically in the US for the last 6 months of sales. Then Ballmer announced that Xbox Live had reached 30 Million subscribers. Thats the number of Gold subscribers to date.

 Steve then moved on to the updates expected to hit the Kinect this spring. The long awaited up date to Netflix is coming, as well as Hulu Plus browsing with just the flick of your wrist and the sound of your voice. These features have been shown off before, but at least we now have a more accurate time frame of release.

Then came an annoying but understandable cut in the feed of the Microsoft CES Presser. (Picture shown below)

Next up was some talk about Avatar Kinect, a kind of Hub like area where you and friends can take your Avatars and interact with each other(think PlayStation Home). Facial expressions were also mentioned as something Kinect will integrate. For example, if you smile Kinect will translate that expression onto your Avatar. Making for a more realistic and expressive conversation between friends.

 

ESPN came into the picture and was shown off using Kinect as we do now. A betting feature was shown for the BCS College Football season in where you would vote on a team to win and see your friends do the same, thus splitting the results and showing them in percent form.

It was Windows Phone and the PC that came last. Windows Phone 7 was show playing games and it was announced that Fable Coin Golf would be showing up on the platform in the future.

A montage was shown of several games that would be or are now available on the Windows Phone 7 platform such as Fable Coin Golf, Tetris, Fruit Ninja, and Star Wars: Cantina by THQ among others.

Copy and Paste were shown as part of the next Windows Phone 7 update. Steve expressed how proud Microsoft was about its Windows Phone 7 build and market growth. With over 20 thousand developers registered to work on the platform, the company is looking forward to its progress in the mobile market.

PC and Windows 7 came last but certainly not least. You could even say this was the most impressive part of the show, and not too many people would argue. Steve Ballmer then brought out Mike Angiulo, Windows PC Ecosystem and Planning team lead, who showed the audience some of the transforming laptop tablets running Windows 7. Including a dual, capacitive touch screen, laptop with integrated smart software keyboard.

A large Windows PC Surface table was show as well, with up to 20 finger touch detection. 

Lastly, Ballmer closed off the show with a preview of PC's running the next version of windows. Several PCs and Laptops were shown running Window's next iteration, unfortunately it wasn't the software they were trying to show off, this was just a demonstration to show that windows is being worked on to integrate seamlessly into future hardware.