Tag Archives: 3dv

Looks like Nintendo bossman Satoru Iwata was shown Natal’s tech at one point and passed on it due to latency and price-point reservations, according to CVG.
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It’s finally been confirmed that Microsoft bought Israeli tech firm 3DV.

Israeli business daily Globes reports that Microsoft’s Moshe Lichtman mentioned 3DV in a press conference relating to Microsoft’s R&D centre in Israel.

“The R&D centre helped Microsoft in buying the intellectual property of 3DV Systems, and in the wake of that dozens of the company’s employees were recruited to work at the development centre,” Lichtman said.

Globes says the Antitrust Authority approved the deal “a few days” ago.

3DV’s tech has been long-rumoured as the basis for Natal, but Microsoft claimed at E3 that the 360 motion system was built in-house.

There’s more on Eurogamer.

Microsoft’s Shane Kim and Aaron Greenberg has said that Project Natal and the company’s recent acquisition of 3DV tech have nothing to do with each other.

Project Natal has been in development “for a long time.”

“No, we built this in house,” echoed Greenberg.

“None of those rumours did justice to what we were actually doing with Project Natal. People expected a controller you put in your hands,” Kim told 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.”

More through the link.

In case you needed any more of a hint that Microsoft’s about to announce a motion-sensing device for 360, the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” has said that “Microsoft Corp. is developing a new videocamera for the Xbox 360 console that will allow players to control games with the movement of their bodies”.

“Unlike the Wii,” says this report, “the Microsoft camera won’t require users to hold any hardware to control on-screen action, the people familiar with the matter said. The camera would sit near the television and capture when players move their hands, legs or head.”

E3, kids. Yes, sir. Read the full thing through there.

Ars Technica’s posted up impressions of 3DV’s motion-sensing tech, and if you have more than two brain cells you should be paying attention – there’s more than a little rumour doing the rounds that this is heading to 360, and may well be announced at E3.

Pro-tip: if the things we’ve been told off the record in the last few days are true, you would be very wise to read that article.