Microsoft aimed to expand the audience of their Xbox 360 gaming console with the help of a new add-on gadget Kinect.
This add-on device will be on sale Thursday for $150, when coupled with Xbox 360 with a four-gigabyte hard drive, it will cost $300. This device allows the players to control the games using hand gestures and body movement and voices without the use of traditional controller.
According to the Senior Vice President Tony Key, of sales and marketing at Ubisoft Entertainment, Microsoft's Kinect is what the future of gaming looks like. With the used of motion sensing controller technology he said that the company created an absolute breakthrough for the future of the gaming consoles.
The launching of Kinect this Thursday will be a test for Microsoft, whether their huge investment for research and development of their new product can pay off those investments. Company investors spend $8.7 billion in improving their existing products.
The Chief Research and strategy officer at Microsoft, Craig Mundie, believed that the R&D investments by the company paid off well for Microsoft. He added that as a part of the company, they viewed themselves as a part of a pure intellectual property business, and that requires them to sustain making out investments to remain competitive.
Several Game industry executives believed that Microsoft has taken the whole concept of an innovative gaming console by eliminating any requirements to hold any hardware and controllers when playing,
The company's new add-on device is needed to be plug into Xbox 360 consoles, it includes a microphone, camera, and an infrared depth sensor that have the capabilities to detect the player's entire body movements.
Mr. Mundie said that Kinect is a spectacular collaboration between research group and product that most people think as an impossible thing to happen.
In the past Microsoft been criticized by copying the innovations been made by other companies like a plan for a Wii-like motion sensing controller, however, the company decided to do something original with the use of gesture technology.
