Image via Wikipedia
More news coming out of the E3 gaming convention and Microsoft has announced what it has been keeping secret. Meet Project Natal. The Xbox’s revolutionary answer to Nintendo’s Wii that aims to eliminate controllers and make “you the controller”. I have to say, although I am sceptical about whether the technology is in place to make this possible, but it’s definitely a forward thinking step in the right direction.
Click read on to see pictures and the video of Project Natal in action
So far the press has been positive around the tech world with people like CNET endorsing the product as something of an innovation in today’s gaming market. Project Natal even has it’s own YouTube page and has racked up almost a 1000 subscribers already in the short period of time it’s been announced.
Project Natal uses technology from recently acquired company, 3DV Technology, and has been totally built in house as opposed to being sourced out like a lot of technology is. Aside from having the name of a baby cloning project, what essentially it does is have the ability to recognise and analyze the human skeleton thus being able to extract it to the effect we see in the Video below.
In built into Project Natal is an impressive array of face, body, voice and even item recognition software which allows for a much more personalised system. Like the demo, having a a group of people in front of the camera shouldn’t pose a problem and even people walking back and forth in between the camera and the “controller” shouldn’t disrupt the connection. 
It’s probably easiest explained just by watching Microsoft’s video for it. Note the Chuck Norris joke which made me chuckle.
Now if Project Natal does succeed and achieve what it aims to achieve, I believe it will literally blow the Wii right out the park. And yes although the Wii motion plus which was demoed also at E3 will be coming out, this is clearly head and shoulders light years ahead of it. Project Natal not only hopes to change the way we game but also how we interact with the world of computers and if it achieves what it sets out to achieve, I’d pay crazy money to get this.
Personally if i was a Nintendo Exec, I’d be quaking in my boots right now.
