When the Nintendo Wii came out, it definitely changed the way that video games are played. You no longer are just pressing buttons to get your character on screen to do different actions, instead you used different hand motions to control the game. Playstation and Xbox are both working on their own motion control devices. While Playstation’s offering is quite similar to the Nintendo Wii remote, Microsoft’s Project Natal for the Xbox 360 is completely different and is able to recognize your entire full body motions. You will not need to hold a controller for any of these games, which for some could definitely be a good or bad thing.
I think, for specific types of games, it will be pretty awesome, and so I am going to discuss what I think will be the best types of games for the Project Natal controls.
Fitness Games
I think that Project Natal fitness games will definitely do well with this type of control scheme. The Wii Fit balance board definitely did pretty well, but it has some limitations since it can only sense what you are doing on the board and give you feedback from there. Project Natal, on the other hand, will be able to see your entire body and be able to tell you if you are doing the workouts properly or not. This is valuable feedback for any type of fitness game. Since Microsoft is aiming at casual consumers with this new technology, then getting women to buy it to be able to do workouts at home with feedback that a DVD just can’t give you, will definitely be a large selling point.
Mini-Games
I think collections of mini-games will definitely be a hit with Project Natal controls. You’ll be able to have your friends jump into a game, without having to know how to press buttons, which buttons to press. This will allow you to have more fun, and if you can move your body, you’ll be able to play little games like this. I think many games will build these mini-games into their games, as well as companies offering a whole entire game that is based around mini or party games.