Natal is Microsofts most exciting product

Microsoft’s 2010 launch slate includes an array of technology spanning a wide selection of sectors, but speaking to a gathering of tech execs in Colombia earlier this week CEO Steve Ballmer singled out Natal as the most important release of the year.

Perhaps for me the most exciting product we’ll bring to market this year, and it really fits in this context, actually comes out of our video gaming group,” he stated, according to ZDNet.

You might say, why would I talk to a group of CEOs about video games? Because the technology actually is very general purpose, and we’ll see come into the rest of our lives pretty soon.

It’s a technology that we call Natal. If you want to control the TV, you don’t go get some remote control or big fat gaming thing. If you want to look through TV channels, you just gesture, and the computer recognises your voice, it recognises your gestures.

You want to play a game and you need to jump, you jump. It recognises you, it knows your voice, who you are, your gestures, what you’re doing.”