This is introducing the new Microsoft xbox 360 kinect; it was previously referred to as Project Natal and originally the work of an Israeli company 3DV.
It is the newest motion sensitive game to join the likes of Nintendo Wii which was released in 2006 and Playsation Move released around September this year. Now lovers of video games now have a quite a range to choose from.
Motion sensitive games actually brings the palyers inside the game, imagine while playing a tennis game all you have to do is swing your hand to hit the ball instead of using your finger to press buttons on your control pad.
Whether this will make die hard gamers throw away control pads and fall in love with motion control technology remains to be seen.
History
Kinect was first announced on June 1, 2009 under the code name "Project Natal". Following in Microsoft's tradition of using cities as code names, "Project Natal" was named after the Brazilian city of Natal as a tribute to the country by Microsoft director Alex Kipman, who incubated the project, and who is from Brazil. The name Natal was also chosen because the word natal means "of or relating to birth", reflecting Microsoft's view of the project as "the birth of the next generation of home entertainment".
How does Xbox 360 kinect work?
The kinect sensor contains an RGB camera and a depth sensor to track your movement. It measures the positioning of 48 key joints in your anatomy and by tracking the movement of these joints, it can work out exactly your body position is. The depth sensor consists of an infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor and allows the Kinect sensor to see in 3D under any ambient light conditions. The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, with the Kinect software capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, such as the presence of furniture.
It is seen in 3D by overlapping the input from the RGB camera with depth sensor. Meanwhile the built in multiarray microphone monitors the room for your voice, kinect even allows you to control your xbox using your voice. The Kinect sensor's microphone array enables the Xbox 360 to conduct acoustic source localization and ambient noise suppression, allowing for things such as headset-free party chat over Xbox live.
The good thing about xbox 360 is that it actually reads body movement with sensors instead of using controllers for on screen movement.
Kinect is based on software technology developed internally by Microsoft and range camera technology by Israeli developer Prime Sense, which interprets 3D scene information from a continuously-projected infrared pattern.
It was described by Microsoft personnel as the primary innovation of Kinect, the software technology enables advanced gesture recognition, facial recognition, and voice recognition. According to information supplied to retailers, the Kinect is capable of simultaneously tracking up to six people, including two active players for motion analysis with a feature extraction of 20 joints per player.
You can either go for a kinect bundle if you already have an xbox 360. If you don’t, get the new xbox 360 250GB hard drive and kinect sensor or xbox 360 4GB memory and kinect sensor.
Here are some Xbox 360 Kinect games: Kinect sports, Fighters uncaged, The biggest loser: ultimate workout, Kinect advwntures, Kinect joy ride, Child of Eden.
