207w ago - Microsoft's Shane Kim has said that the systems making up Project Natal have been in development "for a long time", and distanced the full-body motion-sensing camera from the company's acquisition of 3DV Systems.

Following the announcement at the platform holder's E3 conference on Monday, many assumed that Natal's technology and 3DV's (seen in late 2007 prior to the company's acquisition) were one and the same, but Kim told VentureBeat, "At Microsoft Research, we have had a lot of working going on for a long time."

His colleague Aaron Greenberg was even more direct. Asked whether Natal was derived from 3DV technology, he told Eurogamer to quote: "No, we built this in house."

"None of those rumors did justice to what we were actually doing with Project Natal. People expected a controller you put in your hands," Kim said to VentureBeat.

"We have done a lot of work in natural user interfaces. Voice recognition is one of them. That's why we have been able to deliver development kits for it this week."

Microsoft hasn't gone it completely alone though, as Kim admitted "it's a combination of partners and our own software", and some have theorised that acquisitions like 3DV's were designed to insure the company against similar patents.

"You have...

222w ago - Recently there's been a lot of talk about Microsoft picking up 3DV systems. This would be implemented onto their future console known as of now, the Xbox 720.

If rumors are true, Microsoft's next console will utilize motion sensing in a true next-generation way. Heck, maybe it can even surpass the Wii with its outstanding motion controls.

If for some reason you don't know, the PS3 has motion controls as well; unfortunately, developers haven't been able to utilize this feature to the best of its experience. Back in 2002, Sony presented the Eye Toy in which your body movement is the controller.

Although a ground breaking idea, people weren't really feeling it back then. The games weren't that good, or at least good enough when compared to the other PS2 titles. People were more focused on all those AAA titles Sony was pushing.

Sadly, Sony dropped the ball with the Eye Toy; it was not promoted right and it got pushed to the corner of the room. Few developers would make games for it which in the end made for a cheapened experience.

Microsoft is looking to revive this technology now and take advantage of its full potential, just as Wii has done. If Microsoft can implement this feature on 360 it would be great seeing how massive the 360 fan base is. If they...