Once known as “Project Natal,” Xbox 360 maker Microsoft has christened their hands-free game controller “Kinect”. Basically it is a device that lets players be the game controller. The new Xbox controller was hugely popular at the E3 2010 gathering in Los Angeles.
Some games available for Kinect will be Your Shape and Dance Central. Physical fitness is an obvious theme. The bowling game might be interesting. The Kinect requires no controller and is pretty good at recognizing you and what your doing.
New Xbox Controller Kinect at E3 2010
What Kinect needs to be wildly successful is the most compelling game in the world. Can it be done? We will see…
OK, picture this: You see somebody having a seizure. At least, that’s what you think is happening. You see them flailing their arms like they are trying to shoo away a bee. Their whole body is contorting. Without any apparatus to explain the behavior it seems like something must be really wrong.
Upon further examination you find that they are playing a video game. That is what you can expect to happen with the xbox new controller.
This hands-free device will read your movements – even your expressions – and then deliver reactions based upon the information received.
Sony announced its own motion-sensing controller to compete with the Wii and Xbox’s Project Natal, at E3.
Here are some details mentioned:
Scheduled launch date: Spring 2010
When it comes to market it will be available to a “range of first-party and third-party content.”
This new controller will function “with any games across all genres from casual to core.”
“Face-tracking and head-tracking capability already in the PS3 SDK” will offer developers “powerful tools for new types of user interaction.”
Works with the PlayStation Eye’s built-in microphone array for voice input and voice recognition.
There can be up to four of the new motion controllers can be tracked at once by the PlayStation Eye.
May combine motion control wand and PS3 controller functions. “the motion controller as a sword and use DualShock 3 as a shield.”
Utilizing PS3′s power: ”motion-tracking library has some SPU overhead and has an impact on memory as well, although these will be minimized.”
Will you adapt to this new kind of moving around gaming interaction, or will you still like to veg out – couch potato-like – mashing a controller with your thumbs?
In a recent speech in Chicago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that there definitely will be a new Xbox console on store shelves by 2010, despite constant denials by Microsoft executives. The characteristics of Natal were suggested to be housed within the main Xbox console, as opposed to Natal’s original design of being an external peripheral.
Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg says Natal will be completely compatible with the current Xbox 360 system, and will not need additional auxiliary support to function the XBOC.
A brand-new gesture-based motion control system from Microsoft was unveiled on June 1st at E3. Known, right now, as Project Natal this new XBOX controller makes use of an advanced camera and microphone system to grease the wheels of three-dimensional motion tracking, facial and voice recognition.
The high tech device was used to demonstrate new game experiences, including a facsimile of a virtual character that relayed one’s own movement in action games, interacting with an Artificial Intelligence character by passing real items into the XBOX world. Users have interface options that allow movement through menus with the wave of a hand.
The concern for Project Natal is that this technology will not be inexpensive. Although Microsoft has not released pricing, the company will be unlikely to include Natal in each Xbox 360 sold and keep its current pricing. They do say, however, that the new controller will work with all XBOX360. For peripherals this will likely be an expensive (and essential?) option.
Using the new XBOX Controller
Project Natal hands-free controller and the Playstation Motion Controller both have to battle it out with the Wii Remote, which has gone main stream and made some of the most unlikely people into gamers. The new technologies will make for an interesting competition in the video gaming console wars.
“The only way to bring interactive entertainment to everybody,” Steven Spielberg proclaimed at E3 in Los Angeles, “is to make the technology invisible. Only then can we shine the spotlight where it belongs, which is on you.”
When, in “Back to the Future: Part II”, Marty (Michael J. Fox) demonstrated his skill at Wild Gunman, a video game at Cafe 80′s, one of the two young boys he was showing said, “You have to use your hands? That’s a baby’s game!” Well, now you don’t havt to hold anything when playing, or better put, interacting with the x Box360 using the new xBox controller, referred to as Project Natal.
The handheld controller seems to be the thing that’s holding video games back from realizing their full potential (meaning complete immersion – utter suspension of disbelief). No more fiddling around with buttons and joysticks? That seems unlikely but, look at what a game changer was the WII. The WII redefined the way we play with video games with its physically interactive controllers.
WII brought video gaming to the mainstream, like no other device. This showed that there is a hungry audience from pre-tikes to grayhairs. The new Xbox controller, if it does half of what Microsoft’s marketing division has portrayed, will bring a wide spread buying frenzy to the Christmas season this year. Let this not be more vaporware!
