Software giant, Microsoft which announced 'Project Natal' more than a year ago to develop Microsoft Kinect controller as an addition to X360, has offered a preview to the upcoming device.

Microsoft Kinect is to compete with the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Playstation Move as they offer motion based gaming experience. The gamers move their body to make whatever movement intended while Kinect is a step further as it does not use a controller and turns the gamers as controllers.

The hardware of the device has three sensors to enable this experience. The first sensor is a color camera for pictures and Video chat while the second and third is a IR blaster which is able to compute the 3D space where the user is standing with the help of the monochrome CMOS camera sensor.

These sensors allow Kinect to accurate replicate the actions of the gamers in real life in the gaming world. It can map 48 points on the player’s body and is capable of doing this for two players. The device does not have any processing chip and the processing is done in X360.

The users can load the game in the same way and Kinect automatically detects the player in its range. If another person it moves into the areas it adds a second player if the game supports multiplayer. The users can also control the Menu option with hand motion.

The device is very responsive and the tools are easy to understand and use. Kinect also accepts voice commands along users to say things instead of hand gestures. The feature is not expected to be available in the beginning but might be made available through a Microsoft firmware update.