At the E3 video games conference in 2009, Microsoft announced something that will revolutionize the video game industry. They unleashed demonstrations and video of their new accessory for the Xbox 360 console, that is the Project Natal camera. That camera, in actuality two cameras, are able to see all of the movements that your body makes, and translate that through software that will allow you to control your video games with your body movements, isn’t that cool?
While that may seem a lot like the Nintendo Wii, it definitely takes it a step further. While the Nintendo Wii can only judge your hand movements certain ways, and that is definitely cool, Project Natal is able to see all of the motions that you do, and translate that into awesome video games in all types of genres. The way that it works is that there are two different types of cameras. The first camera is a regular RGB camera that works like a video camera seeing you and translating that onto the screen. The second camera is an infrared one that can sense the distance of your movements. The Project Natal software takes that information, and combines it to control the video games.
Since the demos and videos look a lot like that movie Minority Report, people look at that and say “Is Project Natal fake?“. And while it may seem that way, it is definitely real and the good news is that it will be coming out during Holiday 2010. No specific release date has been set for that accessory, but it will definitely be a huge seller, that is for sure!
So far, the types of games that have been shown are games that will appeal to all types of players. The goal of Project Natal from Microsoft’s perspective is that they want to get as many people that don’t play video games to want to play video games now that a controller won’t be an obstacle anymore.
Preorder Project Natal on Amazon
Related Reviews: