PrimeSense first considered Apple as a partner for its to-be-Kinect technology, but the company allegedly proved difficult to work with.

Why is it Microsoft, and not Apple, that's the source of this week's big motion-control gaming binge? You might think that Apple's only focused on touch interfaces and, thus, has no need to consider a device like Microsoft's Kinectthe family-room-style motion tracker that correlates real-life movement with on-screen gaming action.

Not so, says Inon Beracha. He's the CEO of a company called PrimeSense--the very company that created the raw hardware fueling Microsoft's Kinect device. According to Cult of Mac's Leander Kahney, Beracha first put Apple in the forefront of his mind when considering which Silicon Valley companies he could pitch the Israeli-born motion tracking technology to.

"It was the most natural place for the technology," said Beracha in a 2008 conversation held between him and Kahney--on a trans-continental flight, of course.

And according to Kahney, the proposed fit seemed to match on paper: Apple, after all, was right in the process of introducing the iPhone's touch-based user interface to the market. And here was Beracha, pitching an almost Minority Report-like interface himself that could one day be inexpensive enough to stash in a variety of different devices and scenariosa car, the home, or the office, Kahney suggests.

So what, then, happened to the negotiations?

"Apple is a pain in the ass," said Beracha.

Kahney says that the first few meetings between PrimeSense and Apple, "hadn't gone so well," citing a number of legal agreements and non-disclosure forms Apple allegedly asked Beracha to sign. Apparently fed up with the affairor finding sweeter deals elsewhereBeracha eventually ended up parting ways with Apple, and such ends the story of how Steve Jobs almost had a Kinect of his very own (minus, of course, the various tweaks built into the device by Microsoft Research.)

Of course, it wouldn't be fair to only point at Apple; other companies like Nintendo, for example, had a chance to pick up a Kinect-like device and run with it. According to CVG, Nintendo saw a working demo of a similar prototype around the end of 2007 and opted not to bring the device on-board. And they were still skeptical of Microsoft's ability to capitalize on 3D motion tracking as of January of this year: "We remain unconvinced Natal will deliver on the more sophisticated elements of what Microsoft is promising at the price they're aiming for," said an anonymous source to CVG.

It remains to be seen just which companiesif anymight end up eating their words.