natal

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft on Monday set the tone for a newly revitalized E3 with the announcement of its Project Natal, a hands-free motion-sensitive controller for the Xbox. Now, on the heels of some less-than-stellar sales numbers, Nintendo has a chance to steal back the attention of the world's video game press, many of whom are on hand this week for the industry's most famous trade show. But can Nintendo do it?

This is our live blog of Nintendo's E3 press briefing, which kicked off shortly after 9 a.m. PDT at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Sister site … Read more

LOS ANGELES--For those of you who have been waiting for some really big news to come out of the video game industry, Microsoft answered your call Monday with its innovative "Project Natal," a hands-free motion-sensitive controller system.

Announced during Microsoft's annual E3 press conference, Project Natal seems almost certainly to be the culmination of several years of work by an Israeli start-up called 3DV Systems, which Microsoft recently acquired.

The technology, as demonstrated (see video below), appears geared toward allowing users to control games, movies, and anything else on their Xbox system with their hands alone, and … Read more

The big news from Microsoft' E3 press conference was clearly its "Project Natal" motion sensing technology.

We're pretty sure that it is based on technology from 3DV systems, an Israeli start-up that we wrote about some time ago. I'm hearing that Microsoft has in fact, acquired the company, as has been reported. I have yet to get that 100 percent confirmed, however.

In any case, here's a video from Microsoft showing the technology in action.

After a bunch of (mostly) expected games, Microsoft's E3 press conference finally revealed something of greater interest and scope: Project Natal, the code name for the company's well-rumored motion-sensing bar.

Taking a direct shot at Wii users who "sit on the sofa using some kind of preset waggle commands," Natal is controller-free, using what looks like a TV-mounted camera/microphone bar to sense motion, sound, and even 3D movement, suggesting that the technology involved is far beyond that of products like Sony's PlayStation Eye.

Project Natal is going to work with all current, past, and future versions of the Xbox 360, according to the press event. While the wide-open excitement of the initiative was refreshing, the fact that Natal has no official name, price, or release date was disappointing. In fact, it was called a concept for the future.

As if the legitimacy of Microsoft's move had not been validated yet, on came Steven Spielberg to rave about this future direction for game technology, claiming that "people are too intimidated to pick up game controllers." This makes sense, but it's already been proven with the Nintendo Wii and the iPhone. Microsoft is a latecomer to this party, but Spielberg did announce that he's currently working on games for this platform, although no more details were given.

Demoed at the press event were a Breakout-like game called Ricochet, which involved hitting a ball across a room to destroy bricks, and a paint program called Paint Party. Paint Party's gestural vocabulary seemed to be stuck in Jackson Pollack-land, but the simple splash-to-paint commands seemed to be relatively responsive.

Accuracy, however, remains a big question mark.… Read more