In 2003, Sony Playstation released the EyeToy. The EyeToy was a revolutionary concept that used a webcam to reflect the player onto the screen. On screen the player could move there body around to control certain elements of a game, from hitting balls to cleaning windows. What was special about the EyeToy was the level of interactivity it used. The games themselves were not groundbreaking but the way they were controlled was. To interact with this game you had to jump run and wave around the screen which really engaged the user. The only problem with the EyeToy was the games, most of the games were just mini-games combined with in one game so nobody really used it for serious gaming.
On September 14th, 2006 the Nintendo Wii was released to the general public. The Wii was set to revolutionize the way we interact with games consoles. What was unique about the Nintendo Wii was the the fact that the controller had its position and orientation tracked allowing for user to more freely control the movement of what was happening on screen. This engaged the audience much more and made the games even more interactive. Since then Sony and Microsoft have been looking into using motion to control games.
In June 2009 Xbox revealed Project Natal which takes the concept of the using their body to interact with the game a whole new level. Unlike the Playstation Eyetoy, Project Natal uses 3D motion tracking, a camera, mutli-array microphones and facial recognition. This means that potentially the device is capable of producing games where not only does the user interact with the game, the game interacts with the user as demonstrated in this video:
