In the summer of 2009, when Microsoft announced the Project Natal accessory for the Xbox 360 at the E3 conference, casual gamers and even hardcore gamers were in awe of the ability to be able to control their video games with their full body motions.  This opened up an entire new realm of different ideas and game types that are now possible because of the motion sensing and voice recognition capabilities.  Although none of the ones that were featured in the promotional videos are official Natal Games, they definitely show cool possibilities of what this may be able to do.

The main video that was featured was called “Meet Milo”.  It featured a boy on screen who could recognize your voice, your voice inflections, and other types of things allowing you to have an interaction with a computer or video game character.  It seemed like he remembered conversations from earlier, as well as allowed you to even scan in pieces of paper, and he is able to recognize some of the features on there.  Although features may definitely be limited, the promotional video featuring Milo in it has definitely spawn a lot of Project Natal parodies.  They feature Milo getting drunk, being cursed at, and also witnessing some pretty inappropriate things.

Other cool features of Project Natal from the videos at the announcement, was the ability to control your Xbox 360 with hand motions, not just during games.  In order to browse through the menus, or to watch videos, you’ll just have to do certain hand movements to pick a movie.  You may even be able to say “Play Movie” and “Pause Movie” and other such commands, because of the voice recognition that Project Natal has.  Microsoft is definitely marketing this towards the casual gamer audience, trying to draw more moms and dads (the ones with money) into buying this so that they can get in on the action also.  What will Project Natal really be like?  Who knows?  We’ll just have to wait and see.