XBOX Natal - The Next Big Thing in Controllers is No Controller!

My family and I were hooked on the Wii the first time we played it with friends - the whole concept of a video game where you bowl by actually swinging a remote like a bowling ball brought gaming to a whole new level of interaction, and made it much more of a family activity. While the Wii has continued to evolve, through the addition of the Wii Balance Board and, more recently, the Wii Motion plus add-on for higher accuracy movements the other consoles have stuck with the traditional controller interfaces.

Recently, motivated by a crazy Walmart special on the Xbox 360 Arcade ($99 after a $100 gift card), we decided to expand our gaming equipment. We had played the original Xbox quite a bit before having kids (Halo, still in my opinion one of the greatest games of all time), and figured the new version would be fun for Mom and Dad. While searching for info about our new purchase, I stumbled on a reference to a new Xbox 360 add-on that is currently under development called Natal. Check out this video:

We are very excited by the potential of this new type of interface - the concept of controlling a game with your hands or being able to speak answers to questions seems like an overdue evolution in gaming - we can't wait to see the games and applications that get developed for Natal!

A little research on news articles on the web reveals that Project Natal is currently under development by the Xbox team, and will probably be launched in time for Christmas 2010 at a price low enough to entice tons of users to buy this very interesting looking add-on for the Xbox ($75 - $100). It certainly makes for a compelling reason to watch for good deals on Xbox 360s!