How many vendors does it take to make Microsoft’s Project Natal game control system?
We’ve been sniffing around Microsoft’s secretive Project Natal for a while. Microsoft took the wraps off the controllerless, gesture-based game play system for the Xbox 360 at the E3 show in June. But it never explained exactly how it was pulling off the image-recognition technology behind it. With Natal, a 3-D camera captures your movements and translates them into game controls. You don’t need to hold a traditional game controller and can instead make something happen with the wave of your arm. Several 3-D camera makers have been working on making low-cost 3-D cameras. Microsoft bought 3DV Systems earlier this year, and it has also been working with PrimeSense. It wasn’t completely clear why. At the Emerging Display Technologies conference this week, we got one answer. Frances MacDougall, chief technology officer at GestureTek, said that his company was also working on Project Natal. Asked why there were so many vendors on Natal, he said that Microsoft will be using a low-cost 3-D ca
