C&C3 360 dated, demo confirmed

Electronic Arts is convinced that there is a market for real-time strategy games on home consoles. Traditionalists believe that the PC is the only home for the RTS genre, but the publisher took the leap of faith with an Xbox 360 version of Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II last July, and the critical reception was positive.

The company is braving the waters once again with an Xbox 360 version of Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, and EA today finally solidified a release date--May 10.

The game sees players controlling armies battling in the year 2047 over an alien mineral called tiberium. There are three factions in the game--the good guys of the Global Defense Initiative, the evil Brotherhood of Nod, and the extraterrestrial Scrin--all with different ideas of what to do with the parasitic tiberium.

EA has taken the traditionally keyboard-and-mouse-centric controls of the RTS genre and adapted them for the Xbox 360. The console version will also support the Xbox Live Vision camera peripheral, showing each participant on a portion of the screen and allowing the winner to take center stage at the end of a match.

A demo will also be hitting Xbox Live Marketplace "in the coming weeks," but no further details have been revealed.

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars for the Xbox 360 is rated T for Teen and will retail for $59.99. For more information, read GameSpot's previous coverage or check out the review of the PC version.