There's no need for conjecture; Microsoft's upcoming motion control peripheral, once known as Project Natal, is now to be officially known as "Kinect".


"For lots of people, that controller is a barrier," Microsoft creative director Kudo Tsunoda told USA Today. "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."


In addition to the rebranding, a number of Kinect titles were also revealed in the USA Today report, including a Star Wars game from Lucasarts, a Disney game, a dance title from MTV (interesting), a pet-training title, a Wii Sports clone called "Kinect Sports" (which we believe Rare is developing), an adventure sports game and, as expected, the return of Joyride as a motion-controlled game.

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So, goodbye, Project Natal. You were a strange name, but we grew to love you in a way we could never do with something as stupid as "Kinect".

UPDATE - Here's a shot from the floor of the Kinect-focused performance by Cirque du Soleil.



Microsoft Kinect gets into motion [USA Today]

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