What the world knew as Microsoft’s Project Natal will now be known as Kinect. At the E3 gaming expo, Microsoft unveiled the new name, which they reckon is more marketable than the former name. Other than that, we’re still looking at the same peripheral in a more polished design that has a RGB camera, depth sensor, microphone, facial recognition and more.

Microsoft has not disclosed the price or the availability yet but it’s rumored to launch before the holiday season. More details are expected to be unveiled today.

Press Release

[Via Joystiq]

Microsoft will reveal Project Natal’s price and availability details at the E3 Premiere in couple of weeks but if you want an estimation about how much you’ll be shelling out when it comes to the market, Edge Online claims to have got it from their trustworthy source. Provided its true, the standalone Project Natal accessory will cost $150 and $300 if we’re looking to buy it with Xbox 360 Arcade. The previously rumored price for the standalone kit was around $80.

Moreover, the source also chimed in with the global release date, which he claims to be around October 26.

[Via Joystiq]

Microsoft’s been vague when it comes to the launch date of Project Natal but thanks to a MS marketing manager for Entertainment & Devices in Saudi Arabia, we know the release month now.

According to the executive, the exact date is still unknown but we’ll “definitely” see Xbox 360’s Project Natal sometime in October.

I do have great news to share with everybody – that Project Natal will be launched in Saudi Arabia on the [inaudible] that it will be launched in the world – that is going to be somewhere in October.

Microsoft is holding a “Premiere” at the E3 next month where it’s expected to unveil the exact release date.

[Via Eurogamer]

A picture of a new Xbox 360 motherboard sparked the 360 Slim rumors and now if we were to believe Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan, we might have the slimmer version by end of this year.

“It is far more likely that we will see a slim version of the Xbox 360 with a 250GB hard drive and with Project Natal bundled into the box while maintaining the $299 price point”.

Currently, Microsoft is selling Xbox Elite in 120GB configuration but the storage can be upped by buying a 250GB HDD addon.

[Via Techradar]

PrimeSense today announced that Microsoft will use their “3D-sensing” technology for Xbox 360′s Project Natal. The Israel-based organization provided a reference design of its PrimeSensor and MS’ hardware engineering team customized it as per Project Natal’s requirement.

Project Natal as we know is Microsoft’s answer to Wii’s motion-sensing controller that with the help of a camera, sensor and mic helps to execute commands by detecting body movements.

Microsoft will premiere the controller at the E3 this year and hopefully, release the expected price and date.

Press Release

Microsoft sent out invites of the world premiere of Project Natal to media. The premiere will happen at E3 in June where journalists will get an hands-on experience and will be later followed by a press conference, where we can expect the exact release date and the pricing.

For the uninitiated, Project Natal is Microsoft’s answer to Wii’s motion-sensing controller and recently announced PlayStation’s Move. The device makes the user as a controller and detects body movements to execute commands. Project Natal tracks the body movements with the integrated RGB camera, depth sensor, mic, facial recognition and software running on a custom processor.

Project Natal is rumored for a November 2010 launch for about $80.

[via CNET]

Microsoft may be gathering all the attention for its controller-free motion-sensing gaming, known as Project Natal. But according to a CVG source, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata apprarently turned it down before it was snagged by Microsoft almost a year later.

The rumor claims that the guys at 3DV Systems – who’ve developed the tech – initially demoed the tech to Nintendo and though Iwata was impressed, he refrained from adopting it because of its price.

“3DV showed off a camera that detected motion in 3D, and had voice recognition – but Iwata-San was unconvinced he could sell it at a Nintendo price point. He also had some worries around latency during gameplay.”

Of course, this is a rumor but the reports that claim Microsoft to remove a chip from Natal to reduce on R&D costs, somewhat echoes Iwata’s concerns.

For the uninitiated, Project Natal introduces a unique way of gaming where it does not include any controller. With motion detection and an integrated camera, the player’s gestures act as controller commands. It is set to launch this year at a price of around $80.

Since the unveiling of Project Natal, Microsoft has been playing coy with its most important details – the price and availability. However, if this new report is to be believed, that has apparently occurred behind closed doors in UK, Natal might be very well coming in November next year.

Some more details were spilled, like there will be around 5 million Natal units up for grabs on launch day, comprising of standalone as well as bundle units, would cost in between $50 to $80 and will have a support of 14 games.

[Via Gizmodo]

Apart from a brief demonstration at the E3 this year, Microsoft has not shared any noteworthy details of Project Natal including its tentative release. Now, in earnings call of THQ, Brian Farell, CEO claims the Project Natal should be out “late next year” so as to benefit from upcoming Christmas season. He also said THQ is developing a game for the Xbox 360 peripheral.

His comment aligns with the early statement from Steve Ballmer, which was later withdrawn and rumors heard from the Taiwanese shores.

[Via OfficialXboxmag]

It looks as if Sony has pulled a similar thing to Microsoft’s Project Natal but with a major difference that the Japanese company’s version uses everyday objects as the controllers. A new patent filed by Sony shows that any three dimensional object in the real world could act as a controller for a PS3 game. The controller works in tandem with Sony’s EyeToy camera that first needs to be registered with the console and can be done by rotating and scanning the object to save it for future use.

This patent actually is an interesting one because it was just a month back when they unveiled their LED equipped Wand controller and also opined that “some experiences need buttons”, which won’t be clearly in this case.

[Via Siliconera]