Biometric Devices: Microsoft Unveils Kinect
Some exciting news for those of you gamers out there. A while back, we covered news about a top secret project Microsoft had been developing, dubbed Project Natal. Much of the buzz around this new venture into the gaming world went unnoticed due to the concurrent introduction of Apple’s touchscreen tablet, the iPad. News of the iPad has settled down a little in the last month as it becomes more available and the novelty wears down, so it’s a good time for Microsoft to rear its head again.
The camp responsible for Microsoft Windows has officially unveiled their Project Natal, a party-style controller-less gaming system created with Nintendo and Sony in its sights. They are calling it Kinect, and it’s a hands-free system for the Xbox 360 that ditches controllers altogether. No more memorizing complex button systems. It’s Microsoft’s hope that the casual gamer will go for the Kinect system, as many have for popular games like Rock Band and other action/movement based games for the Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation.
Games will rely on a device that sits over your television, housing a built-in camera and microphone, which use facial and voice recognition to let you navigate through your virtual worlds. There’s a smart camera that widens its field of view when another person enters the room, and it’s said to allow video chatting and networking with other homes that have Xbox 360s. Ever wonder what your game-playing buddy’s living room looks like? We wrote about some of the more controversial aspects of the system in our previous post on Project Natal – Kinect’s ability, for example, to determine who is playing the game and who is in the room through face recognition, providing a potential boon for targeted advertising and demographic data colleciton. We have yet to hear the final word on this potentially creepy/cool characteristic.
We’re still waiting for the Kinect’s price and release date – originally folks online were saying it would be released sometime near the holidays this year. So far, Kinect’s games in the works are reported to be Joyride, a racing game; Star Wars; Dance Central; and Kinect Sports, a package game that will offer six sports including boxing, bowling, and soccer. Other adventure games are said to include Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals, which also sound fun.
Microsoft previews controller-free games for Xbox 360
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