14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer might be the acting head of Microsoft, overseeing all the big projects that the company is developing, but the sheer size of the operations might have become a bit too much for him. He cheerfully announced to the public that the software giant was set to release a new gaming console during 2010, causing some confusion amongst gamers who are watching the industry quite closely.
Aaron Greeenberg, who is leading the Xbox 360 division, quickly jumped in to say that Ballmer was not right and that the so called “new Xbox 360” was actually the release of Project Natal, the motion tracking technology that Microsoft demoed at E3.
Recently, even Ballmer admitted that he was off the mark, telling IGN that “I confused the issue with my poorly chosen words. There is no news in my comments. Things are as reported after E3. Sorry.”
Project Natal is a very interesting concept, which basically allows the Xbox 360 to recognize the shape of a player, their movements and even hand commands. It will totally eliminate the controller as a means of interaction with the Xbox 360 and would change the way videogames are created and experienced. Initially, Microsoft said that all the versions of the Xbox 360 currently on sale would be able to use Project Natal when it finally arrived, probably in the last half of 2010.
But since then, rumors appeared, saying that the Xbox 360 would undergo a significant revamp so that Project Natal could work with it. The Xbox 360 Arcade version has since received more internal memory, up from 356 to 512 MB. It will be interesting to see whether the other versions of the gaming console will also be getting upgrades all through the year or whether Microsoft will decide to release a new version of the Xbox 360 to be sold bundled up together with Project Natal.