E3 2010: Nintendo ‘set things in motion’ for Kinect

Microsoft’s new game controller Kinect could steal the show at E3 this week – and the firm couldn’t have done it without Nintendo.

Microsoft’s device uses 3D cameras to remove the need for physical controllers. The name, previously Project Natal, was unveiled this evening by leaked online ads and reports in the US press.

Kinect aims to replicate the success of Nintendo’s Wii, which in the last four years has helped widen the audience for games and changed people’s ideas of how a game controller should look.

In a report in the USA Today, Microsoft praises Nintendo for ‘setting things in motion’ for Kinect to emerge. Wii was first unveiled to have a special remote-like controller back at the Tokyo Game Show in 2005. Since then rival format holders have been scrambling to work out how to replicate its hugely inclusive magic.

But there are big differences between the Wii and Kinect, which has no controller at all.

Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said: "[Nintendo] have done some amazing things and brought new people to the category. This is fundamentally different. It’s [about] my body being the controller [and] being able to communicate with just my voice to the system."

"For lots of people, that controller is a barrier," creative director Kudo Tsunoda added. "We set out to make a new control paradigm where anybody can get in and play, without having to read the instructions or learn a complicated set of controls."