Xbox 360 controls that use voice and gestures will take several months before becoming available

 2 Jun 2009 - By Omar Mariño+
 omar@myddnetwork.com


The Project Natal includes a camera, a motion sensor and a microphone, which are elements that will allow users to play by using their bodies and voices to control the Xbox 360. But it will take several months before becoming available in the market. It was confirmed by Daniel Cervantes in an interview yesterday. He is the director of games and entertainment division of Microsoft in Spain. He didn’t specify how long it will take, but he said this technology will be launched at a “global” level. The accessory will be sold as another peripheral and the users will be able to adapt it to current consoles. Don Mattrick, the head of Microsoft’s videogames group, said yesterday that this is a way to renovate the console without changing the hardware.

And he is right. Especially when the software giant achieved a reduction in overall cost of the console, according to its annual report.

In addition, the “Project Natal” Software Development Kit (SDK), which is a tool that allows programmers to begin to develop new titles, has been released and now it is being distributed to game makers that create games for the console. This fact was confirmed by a well-known game maker for the Microsoft console: Cliff B. He is the creator of “Gears of Wars“.

In 2007, Microsoft began to work with this surprising technology that was developed by an Israeli company called 3DV Systems. This company has won several international awards and recognitions such as being a finalist in the ”Best of CES” Awards at the 2008 International CES.

The camera will also be able to identify the user’s voice and use it as a command, but those commands will be quite simple, according to Daniel Cervantes. The voice recognition systems are already present in several Microsoft products, but they still require an special “training”  in order to understand complex commands.

Visit the Project Natal official page






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