Expects huge impact

May 28, 2010 17:31 GMT  ·  By

News has already broken that Robbie Bach, one of the point men at Microsoft dealing with the Xbox 360 and its future, will be leaving the company in order to spend more time with his family. But the executive still has some thoughts about the platform and how it will perform in the second half of 2010 and beyond, which are relevant considering that he will be serving in his current position for another six months.

In a final look at his tenure at the Entertainment & Devices division of Microsoft, he talked about how the impending launch of the motion tracking Project Natal will be affecting the Xbox 360 home gaming console. He told TechFlash that “It's a jumpstart catalyst. It's a midlife kicker for the 360, and it's an opportunity to really drive that business in a dramatic way.”

He then went on to adopt a more technical angle, saying, “There's a tremendous opportunity from a business perspective to produce a new experience for people without shipping a new console. That's sort of the holy grail, in many ways, of the console world.”

Still, Bach only expects to see the full impact of Project Natal to hit after 2 to 3 years, actually making the Xbox 360 a viable gaming platform for longer than the 10 years expected of it when it launched.

Project Natal will be launched at some point during the fall and will allow players to control the Xbox 360 and videogames launched for it entirely through motions of their bodies, without the need for an actual physical controller. Microsoft has not talked about the price of the motion tracking solution and has not revealed too many titles that will make use of the technology. Sony is outing a competing motion tracking solution called the PlayStation Move.