New XBox 360 Natal will Make Button-Controlled Games Obsolete

  Natal can recognise a movement in just 10 milliseconds (Image: Xbox 360 Natal Team/Microsoft)
Natal can recognise a movement in just 10 milliseconds (Image: Xbox 360 Natal Team/Microsoft)

On the later part of this year, Microsoft will finally launch their most awaited XBox 360 add-on which will make button-studded games controllers obsolete.

XBox 360 was developed by Microsoft in 2005 as a direct counterpart to Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. When it was first officially released it was immediately sold out and as of January 2010, there are over 39 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide.

Following this huge success, Microsoft has announced at the CES Gadget Preview 2010, the launch of XBox 360 add-on, called Natal.

Natal, named after the city in northern Brazil, lets players control a game using only their own body movements and voice. Natal takes advantage of an infrared light directly illuminating the players body, a monochrome video camera records the amount of that light they reflect, using the brightness of the signal to measure their distance from the device and capture their movements in 3D.

Without much improvement to the hardware and despite the need of massive processing power to capture movements and voice data, Natal will allow XBox 360 players to optimally enjoy the game with their body movements and voice as controllers, making the classic button controllers obsolete.

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