We caught up with Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE, to chat about the console’s presence at CES, the year ahead and the number 17 million.

While Greenberg was appropriately coy about the Xbox 360’s upcoming line-up beyond what has been announced — yes, there are more games coming for the thing — he didn’t shy away from talking about the numbers war between Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, specifically Sony’s claims that it too has 17 million accounts.

Read on for a taste of what Greenberg had to say about Microsoft’s plans for the Xbox.

What are you getting out of CES, Xbox-wise this year?

Greenberg: CES this year was, I think, the main focus was about Windows 7. We definitely took a back seat from a Microsoft corporate standpoint.

It’s not a show where you get a lot of big game news. But it is interesting to see what’s happening in technology, what innovative things are going on. For us, we usually talk a lot about how things are going to work and integrate across the company and I thought Windows 7 looked pretty good… even though I know Kotaku is a Mac house.

Well, Crecente is a die hard Windows guy. He’s has a deep Apple hatred.

Greenberg: But does he even turn on his computer? I mean, that guy’s gotta be laying in a bed, being fed grapes…

No, he’s on his computer all the time.

Greenberg: Yeah, so I thought the stuff we showed with Kodu was neat. Having the 12-year old girl [on stage] was fun.

An actual 12-year old girl.

Greenberg: Yeah. We were going to go with a 12-year old Avatar, but we thought if we could get a real person, that would be more entertaining.

Obviously at CES there aren’t a lot of four year old pieces of technology being shown, but clearly you’re keeping it fresh with software updates like the New Xbox Experience. Do you ever see yourselves doing something on this level again with the 360? Do you see another NXE style revamp like that in the console’s future?

Greenberg: It’s an interesting question. When we approached the NXE, we really thought about it as if we were launching an entirely new console. When we started thinking about all the changes and possibilities, at first we thought ‘Well, we’ll update this, change that.’

Then we thought, well, ‘What if we just completely wiped the slate clean and completely reinvent the console from the ground up?’ It was a pretty massive undertaking, a massive amount of work and we’ve been very happy with the results.

But it’s kind of hard to think about if we would do something on that level again. It’s hard to say what this will feel like, two, three, four years from now, but right now it feels like we’re definitely on the cutting edge. We’ve designed it so we can continuously update it with new features, so I think we’ll be able to keep up and fine tune based on feedback from the community.

When did you start the NXE project?

Greenberg: The Live team, as soon as we launched the console, were always working on new tech and new updates, but this project has been in development for years. There wasn’t a specific day where we just said “Let’s go.”

When are we going to hear more about the 2009 line-up?

Greenberg: We take a different kind of approach to how we unveil news throughout the year than other platform publishers. We tend to talk about products a little closer to when they’re ready. Last year at CES we didn’t talk a lot about our holiday line-up, we waited until July.

We absolutely have a lot of innovation, we have new first and third-party games coming out this holiday that we have not announced yet. We’ll probably wait until later in the year to talk about those.

The team that built the NXE is a massive team that’s working on things like Xbox Live Primetime in the Spring, but new stuff, new partnerships, new content and things that we’ll be announcing throughout the year. So stay tuned. There’s a lot coming, for sure.

In the past couple years, there seem to have been some noticeable endeavours to secure specific game content, like role-playing game content tailored for the Japanese market and last year, more non-core products like Lips, Scene It and You’re In the Movies. What’s the philosophy in 2009 to expand the Xbox 360 market?

Greenberg: I think what we’ll see is, as a result of how 2008 shaped up — the fact that we had our biggest year in history and we’re now expanding our lead over the PS3 in a global basis — we went into 2008 with a solid lead over PS3 in North America, but Europe was a much closer race. Now, we’re really expanding our lead there. We’ve become, by far, the lead global platform for third parties. I think you’ll see us getting some benefits from that.

Historically, third parties would give us great support and lead developed on our platform, but they would say “In Europe, we have to still support the PS3″ but now that that has switched, I think you’ll see us get some benefits from that.

I also think we’ll have our first full year at mass market price points. We saw a lot of success this holiday as a result of that. I think this is a year where the masses really come into the industry. We know that the PlayStation 2 sold 75% of their systems below $200. The vast majority of those consumers still have not upgraded yet. So I think it’s the year where those consumers go into the store and start making purchases. We think that will benefit us tremendously in 2009. Us having the largest community of core gamers is going to drive blockbuster and core games as well.

You talked earlier about the economy, what concession is Microsoft going to make. I know you’re comfortable with the price point at $199, but are you going to do something on the games front to lure in that more price conscious consumer?

Greenberg: Well, we’ve invested pretty heavily in our Platinum Hits program and we’ll grow that, absolutely. We want consumers to have a great library of value titles, particularly new consumers that are more price sensitive. We’ve expanded that to Xbox Live Arcade and we’ve started discounting and promoting Marketplace content as well. I think we’ve gotten more aggressive about offering value. We’re also going to add a lot more value into the console by adding new content, new partners, new functionality, just like what we did with Netflix, the New Xbox Experience, and Live Party.

Microsoft recently claimed 17 million Live users and 28 million Xbox 360s sold…

Greenberg: Active users.

Active. So what’s the total of Live members that you’ve accumulated?

Greenberg: Uh… A significantly larger number than 17 million. To be clear, we are pretty conservative on how we report our members. It is active members — you have to own an Xbox 360 and if you’re not active in the last six months, we recycle the gamertag and we remove your account. It is a true number of the people we have on the service.

I think it’s important to note, if you compare those to PSN, those numbers you can have just a PSP, you can create an account on the Web. We don’t count Web accounts.

You’re an active member on PSN until you create an account. So, essentially forever. It’s definitely apples to oranges when you compare those numbers.

ASUS hears your cries, PC gamers. They know you’re not content with keyboard and mouse controls, that you’re desperate to get your hands on a faux Wii-remote to control the seven games that support it.

They realise that you want motion control, but that you want it to be far less functional than the standard Wii remote. Thanks to the Eee Stick, which the hardware manufacturer announced in August, you can experience the thrill of tilting things to control on-screen objects.

We got a chance at CES to go hands on with the Eee Stick, which outdoes Nintendo in the colour department by offering the device in more than one color.

Unfortunately, during our extended play time with Astro Avenger II, we weren’t too impressed. Why? Not only does the Eee Stick appear to determine the zero state position based on how it’s being held when booted up, it’s amazingly frustrating to use. Even in 2D, we found our spaceship floating its way into the upper right corner, with no amount of effort able to pull it back out. Fun!

Curiously, the one title that would appear to be the best fit for the Eee Stick, Sega’s Bass Fishing, seemed to take no advantage of the motion control aspects.

We’re not aware of ASUS’s plans to bring the device stateside to Australia, but, if they don’t plan to, we can’t say you’re missing much.

There’s a reason the Gaming Showcase at CES doesn’t light the gaming world on fire. It’s packed to its borders with subwoofer-filled seating designed for games and lame Chinese knock-offs, like the iSports.

Wii imitators, each of which is loaded with minimal effort games, aren’t hard to come by at the Consumer Electronics Show. Typically, the method for making a Wii-like is ordering enough white plastic for your casing and designing a little boot for your plug-and-play games console to rest in vertically.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go hands on with iSports and its suite of games — including Badmintoon, Sword of Warrior01, Beach Vollyball and Soccer 11 — but it looked like a blast. Maybe next year, when Sword of Warrior02 ships.

Like regular sized Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitar controllers, but far, far daintier, the USB ready Riff Rocker adds hand cramping as an extra difficulty modifier to your rhythm gaming.

While the lil’ device has been available commercially for a few months now, it has been so at some of the more, let’s say, unproven retailers. But we got a chance to go claw-hand on with it at CES this weekend. It works, but only with the open source Frets On Fire for Windows and Linux.

And it really only works as a fun little novelty, the kind of thing that someone might while away their time with between CES appointments. It’s certainly more accurate than I had expected — my Pixies “Wave of Mutilation” score was respectable, if not perfect — but limited in its usefulness.

At US$19.95 though, this is either an expensive prank or a very frugal, very space conservative option.

If a US$150 arcade stick is too rich for your blood, accessory maker Mad Catz has a few other options for the fighting game fan not content with the standard Xbox 360 or PS3 controller.

Frankly, neither option is as quite as magical as the Street Fighter IV-branded Tournament Edition Arcade FightStick controller, but for those with shallower pockets, they’ll get the job done.

The standard Arcade FightStick controller, seen above, inherits nearly all of the smart design decisions featured on the Tournament Edition version — buttons on the back, turbo functions, an Xbox 360 guide button lock switch — minus the cord cozy that lets the player store the USB cord within.

It’s not easy stepping down from the Tournament Edition stick, which just radiates quality, but the standard version — much cheaper at US$69.99 USD — isn’t too shabby. It has a much smaller footprint than its big brother, weighing considerably less but still feeling sturdy.

The standard edition doesn’t carry over the same Sanwa parts that make the Tournament Edition feel so arcade accurate. The joystick itself feels chunkier, less elegant, but still serviceable. Same for the eight face buttons. All in all, not a bad stick for the money.

If you’d like to go even cheaper, the Mad Catz FightPad might be what you’re looking for. It too features a programmable turbo function as seen in the arcade sticks, but, as you can see for yourself, keeps the button layout to a pad-sensible six.

The FightPad’s d-pad is sort of a hybrid between an analogue stick and digital pad, with the cross floating in a circular space. That makes it much easier to pull of fireball or dragon punch motions than it would be on a DualShock or Xbox 360 controller d-pad. It feels mostly accurate, much easier on the thumb, even if jumping diagonally with the pad felt more difficult because of its positioning. That may just require some getting used to, but the trade-off of upgrading from a standard pad makes it worth it.

It’s worth noting that the Xbox 360 version of the FightPad controller will be wired, with the PlayStation 3 version wireless.

Overall, we were pretty pleased with the Mad Catz offerings at CES and look forward to spending more time with them for proper hardware reviews.

Get ready to change your opinion about Mad Catz. The third-party controller maker may have made one of the best arcade sticks to ever grace these shores, thanks to its Tournament Edition Arcade FightStick.

Not only does this stick have authentic Sanwa arcade parts, sturdy construction and an arcade-perfect button layout, it comes loaded with smart design decisions. There’s a panel on the back side that pops open, letting you tuck away the USB cord for storage or transport. Right next to that panel are the start and select buttons, relocated to prevent errant pausing during frantic button mashing.

And to the upper left on the top panel, just above the joystick is the unit’s control panel. It’s neat!

Mad Catz have included a Turbo switch, letting the player assign two-speeds of rapid-fire functionality to any button. Perfect for pulling off Blanka’s electro-shock attack or Chun Li’s hurricane kick, the Turbo button option is easy to turn on and off — and a row of LEDs shows which buttons are currently taking advantage of the cheat.

They’ve also added a switch that chooses which function the joystick will replicate, a controller’s left analogue stick, its D-pad or its right analogue stick. This thing isn’t just intended to be used for Street Fighter IV, despite its decoration.

Finally, that little lock and unlock switch turns the Xbox 360’s guide button — and, we assume, PlayStation 3’s PS button — on or off, preventing any unintended game interruptions.

Yes, but how does it feel? Solid as a rock. The highest compliment we can pay to it is that it just feels right, like we were playing Street Fighter IV on a Vewlix arcade cabinet.

And while the Tournament Edition Arcade FightStick feels hefty, it’s not obese. If you’re going to be really violent with the stick, it will move, for better or worse. Thankfully, if you’re going to be playing fighting games seriously, you may want to take advantage of the bolting screws on the bottom of the controller. And if you’re going to take it further than that, you may want to swap out the Sanwa manufactured buttons for a different colour scheme — it’s moddable, should you be non-plussed about invalidating your warranty.

What else can we say, other than “Sold.” The Tournament Edition stick, although a bit pricey at $150 USD, oozes value and attention to detail. We definitely look forward to spending more time with the Mad Catz stick for, you know, review purposes when it ships in February.

Good news. If you missed Activision Publishing president Mike Griffith’s CES talk this morning, you didn’t miss much. Outside of seeing double-bass pedals in action in Guitar Hero: Metallica, Griffith kept Activision’s 2009 plans quiet.

Not so with the intro, which featured Neversoft employees wailing away at Metallica’s “Fuel” in the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica. The game, which I’ve never seen played in person, looks to follow Guitar Hero World Tour very closely, with the interface nearly identical, save for dashes of Metallica artwork nods scattered throughout — the “You Rock” screen, for example, is smashed into view with the St. Anger album cover fist.

When Griffith took over, however, the stage show took a turn for the tame.

Griffith may have sounded excited on a corporate level, proclaiming that the medium was “poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the next decade,” but frankly didn’t tell the CES crowd much that hasn’t been said before.

He came armed with statistics about his own products — 141,000 user created songs uploaded and 21 million songs downloaded for Guitar Hero World Tour, for example — and aimed to prove his claims with big sales data.

The Guitar Hero series, he said, was “the fastest game in history to reach a billion dollars in sales.” Guitar Hero III, Griffith said, improved upon that record by becoming “the first game ever to pass a billion dollars in sales from a single title.”

Griffith also touted Guitar Hero’s success in other terms, citing stats from retailer Guitar Centre. The music seller’s survey findings indicated that sales of electric guitar and amplifiers, between January and September 2008, increased by 27% over the previous year. It credited some of that increase to the success of Guitar Hero.

Outside of the Guitar Hero series, Griffith also pointed to the success of Call of Duty as evidence that “gaming is no longer a solitary pursuit,” boasting that 7 million people were playing the war games “at this very moment.”

Honestly though, after Griffith expounded upon the “three pillars” that make video games just so peachy — story telling, community and interactivity — there wasn’t much beyond a sales pitch about Activision’s line-up from last year that would interest the Kotaku reading gamer. Hopefully, it was fascinating to CES attendees who paid to walk into the Industry Insider series. It did have graphs!

Earlier this week, Sony sent us an oddly timed media bulletin, trumpeting the PlayStation 3’s value versus the Wii and Xbox 360. It also accused Nintendo and Microsoft of “peddling add-ons.” What say you, Microsoft?

“First, I would say we absolutely would not want to trade places with Sony,” said Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360. “We feel like being half the price of the PS3 served us quite well this holiday.”

“The fact that we’re doing this at half the price of their platform, we feel confident that we’re delivering great value,” he added. “I believe that we deliver more value for games and entertainment than any other platform on the market.”

Speaking to Greenberg at CES this morning, he expressed Microsoft’s anticipation that the sub-US$200 price point will give the Xbox 360 the majority of its sales. Greenberg namechecked Sony’s success with the PlayStation 2 at the more mass market price, hoping to emulate its last-gen success.

“At the end of the day, consumers vote with their dollar,” Greenberg said, adding that he expects to see Microsoft’s console sales in December show growth over its 2007 performance, in anticipation of NPD sales data. “I don’t think people take comparison grids into retail stores.”

“I would rather talk about why you should buy our console than why you shouldn’t buy the competitor’s system.”

We’ll have more from our interview with Aaron Greenberg at CES later.

3D gaming is huge at CES 2009. It’s a great gimmick that blows the mind of the buttoned down conventioneer glassy-eyed from looking at television monitors and cell phones that are 0.01% different this year.

Chip maker Nvidia is attempting to lure in the mid-level manager still wowed by 3D displays, showing off Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock with convincing three-dimensional depth. Nvidia’s take requires powered glasses — pretty much like everyone else’s solution — and works just as well.

The businessmen ate it up. It’s definitely impressive, seeing the Guitar Hero note highways popped out beyond the on-stage antics. Well, it’s definitely impressive to look at. It doesn’t add anything new to the actual playing experience, as you’re so focused on the highways during play that everything else requires tuning out. Still, neat-o, at least according to the glasses-sporting passerby.

Nvidia has more than just Guitar Hero on display in 3D, so we’re off to hunt down the company’s other 3D offerings.

Miss Sony’s PlayStation press conference? You’re not the only one. Fortunately, G4 was there, cameras in hand, lens pointed directly at the stage, moments captured, off-screen video shot.

What’s worth seeing? Previews of Resistance Retribution for the PSP, as well as inFamous and Killzone 2 for the PlayStation 3 with brand-new video, first previewed at CES — some of it you may have seen leak on to the internet in previous posts.

There’s also video coverage of the Resistance 2 and Resistance Retribution connectivity that Sony revealed at the most recent Tokyo Game Show, if you haven’t had the opportunity to be wowed by that technology.