With **Tintin **on the horizon, Steven Spielberg's passion for motion-capture technology is well documented. It's less well-known though that he's a bit of gaming geek too, and his guest appearance at Microsoft's E3 Expo revealed a new way to combine the two passions: Project Natal, a new hands-free Xbox controller that uses mo-cap and voice recognition technology to enhance the gaming experienc.
Natal will enable gamers to interact directly with their onscreen avatars and it's safe to say Spielberg is excited by its possibilities in, and beyond, gaming. "It's like the square screen we saw all of our movies on in the early 1950s. Then The Robe came out in Cinemascope. And then came CinRam and Imax followed. That's what [Natal] is. It's a window into what the future holds."
The former Empire editor (and legendary filmmaker) told the BBC that its impact would be 'explosive', and as the man who once blew up a freeway in War Of The Worlds, you'd trust him to know an explosive thing when he sees one.
Microsoft haven't announced a release date for Natal yet, but did use the expo to unveil new Xbox games, including Beatles Rock Band, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.