CES ’10: Microsoft Changes Natal’s Hardware, Sets Its Release For Christmas 2010

Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal has had some slight alterations to its workings. It previously used a built-in chip to determine the player’s movements, however instead, Natal will now use a ‘œsoftware solution’ which among other things may reduce the cost of the device.

The camera tracks body movements and enables players to control games with just their body, removing the need for a controller.

The chip, which took all the strain of the device’s processing will now rely on the Xbox’s CPU, and according to Microsoft will use around 10-15% of the Xbox’s processor. Natal lead developer Alex Kipman said that “Natal has to work on the existing hardware without taking too much hardware processing away’.

But despite the positives of removing the chip it also has the negative effect of preventing non-Natal games being patched to use the Natal hardware.

Robbie Bach also announced that Natal would be released in time for next Christmas. This leaves developers just under a year to have their games ready for the release, which Microsoft is claiming will ’œ[remove] the last barrier to gaming ‘” the controller ‘” freeing you to have the experience you want with technology that’s natural for you.’

We’ve yet to see if Natal will revolutionise videogaming like Microsoft claims. The idea of sitting and playing a racing game with just your hands and body will be frankly, either incredibly awesome or terribly shit. There is also talk of a 100ms-200ms delay which is present on the device, with or without the built in chip, with videos as proof. Microsoft’s arguably desperate attempt to get a chunk of the casual gaming market continues, and it seems by next Christmas we’ll be able to have a play with ourselves. Yay.