At E3 Microsoft announced to the gaming masses a new project, along with Steven Spielberg, a device to do full body and motion tracking. If it works properly its going to be one impressive shift in game control. However when you move this sort of technology to standard virtual worlds, we start to see that we can remove some of the problems people have in virtual worlds with the keyboard puppetry and control. As you can see from this extract.
“This incredible new experience is made possible thanks to the Project Natal Sensor, which combines an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor running proprietary software all in one device. Existing cameras and controllers only trace movement in 2D, but Project Natal tracks full body movement in 3D and responds to commands, directions… even shifts of emotion in your voice!”
Above from http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/news-features/news/Controller-free-gaming.htm
Yeah! Instead of having to sit in one place using complicated keyboard controls, we can interact in virtual worlds by actually standing up and walking around the room, tripping over things, walking out of view of the sensors, and being unable to see the screen! Woot! 🙂
I agree there are some problems like that ahead. I twittered that it may change the way living rooms are designed, i.e no sofa.
It may work that people say cant I just have a keyboard and mouse please 🙂 All those poor souls who cannot manage with pressing a w to move forward will suddenly say can’t we just press a key instead of dancing around 🙂
Either way it starts to give options. I also suspect it will be a USB device so much hacking will take place too 🙂
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