Rockstar Games serves up Table Tennis

In 1972, Nolan Bushnell used cutting-edge technology to create a Ping-Pong simulation. In 2006, Rockstar Games will do the same, as the company today announced that its next title, its first on the Xbox 360, will also be a Ping-Pong simulation.

Rockstar founder and executive producer Sam Houser said the goal with Table Tennis was to make a simple, addictive game that would take advantage of next-gen hardware.

"We wanted to use the power of the new hardware and the resolution of new televisions to give the game an immediacy, an intensity, and a sense of physicality and reality, resulting in a purer, more visceral experience that simply was not possible previously," Houser said in a statement. "It is a distillation of game design philosophy, focusing on removing the traditional areas of compromise inherent in managing size and scope and concentrating the hardware's entire power on one activity, with the aim of doing that better than it's ever been done before."

Developed by Rockstar San Diego (the studio behind the Midnight Club street racing series and the Western shooter Red Dead Revolver), Table Tennis is set to ship to North American retailers for the Xbox 360 on May 22. Bucking the $59.99 pricing trend for 360 games, copies of Table Tennis will go for $39.99.