Focus on innovation

Mar 24, 2010 00:41 GMT  ·  By

Project Natal is not even out and Microsoft is apparently already working on a followup. A statement from a Microsoft research division suggests that the creator of the Xbox 360 is really committed to motion tracking in videogames and will gradually expand the abilities of the peripheral set to launch this year.

Hsiao Wuen Hon, who is the managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, told the Sydney Morning Herald that “And when we do invent something first like the Natal kind of scenario, while we have a researcher working with the product group for the first version, we already have a researcher thinking about the second version down the road so we certainly hope we will continue to be holding that technology. I really love what Microsoft is doing.”

The software giant’s representative also complained about the public perception, the company not being seen as innovative, even if they actually use products it released involving many new technologies.

The first Project Natal is set to be launched before Christmas 2010 and will be competing with the Sony made PlayStation Move and the current darling of the motion tracking universe, the Nintendo Wii. Natal is arguably the most ambitious of the three systems, not requiring an actual controller to play games and with multiple possible uses apart from simple game inputs. Until now, the new system has only been seen in controlled environments and no one is sure whether the performance will be the same inside the normal game space in the living room.

The big unknown at the moment is whether gamers will be interested in picking up either Project Natal or the PlayStation Move and whether Nintendo Wii gamers consider moving from the Nintendo solution to those offered by Sony and Microsoft.