You will have to buy a
licence for your body
Microsoft has been secretly developing
technology that lets people play videogames using natural body
movements. The big idea is kill off the Nintendo Wii using a project
codenamed "Natal," a system that combines cameras and voice and face
recognition software to recognize people and their actions.
Movie
director Steven Spielberg has been roped in to endorse the project. He said
that the gamer in me went out of my mind when I got to be interactive with
this.
Natal lets people play driving games by simply moving hands as
if turning a car steering wheel. In-game characters in boxing, skateboard,
soccer and other sports titles mimic the body movements. The system
scans faces and voices to determine who is playing.
Redmond is not saying
when the kit will be in the shops, but yesterday released a software kit for
videogame makers interested in designing titles to take advantage of Natal's
capabilities.
When it is released, it will change the way that people
play videogames in the same way that the Nintendo Wii managed it. Only with
Xbox graphics and no need for motion controllers it will be scarily
interactive.
Don Mattrick, the head of Microsoft's Xbox and games
business said that the kit will work on all Xbox consols.
Spielberg
said the game could change the way stories are told.