I realise this is a search marketing blog, but with so many people in our industry with an Xbox I thought this was something we just had to talk about.

I’m probably the biggest 360 geek at Bronco – I spent years playing PC games and managed to screw up my arms with RSI in the process – so Project Nattal has got me interested from many levels.

For those of you that haven’t seen the videos, Project Natal is Microsoft’s new addition to the Xbox 360.  It tracks your bodies motion using these motions as input – like a controller – basically its like the Wii, only with your whole body and without a controller.

It can track 48 points of contact from your body (including your face I believe) which means it has the potential to do the following:

• Can detect your emotional state – see Peter Molyneux’s video on Milo below – could this result in a new kind of psychological type of game – or perhaps one that helps solve psychological problems (half of us here could do with that *twitch*)

• It can also detect bad posture – far better than the Wii Balance Board – so I would expect that we’ll be seeing software that helps rehabilitate those with back pain, arm pain etc. (great news for people like me)
• For all those hardcore gamers out there – no longer will you be able to play until 4am, where your eyes are bloodshot and your caffeine is wearing off – instead you’ll (hopefully) get tired out.
• All us hardcore gamers should hopefully turn from being a bit scrawny/fat to being super fit and health (at least thats my plan).

It has also got voice recognition and facial recognition and you can do stuff like “make an elephant” in their painting program (which for some reason is the only thing Microsoft can do) or even scan a skateboard (to be honest I don’t know why you’d want to – my one isn’t anywhere near as cool looking as Tony Hawk’s for instance).

Release Dates

There isn’t any confirmed release dates yet – but I heard a rumour somewhere that it could be for Christmas this year – which seems kind of crazy to me as it’s like something out of the distant future!!!