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[I:http://networksup.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/TweetNatal4.jpg]Within the past few years, there has been fierce levels of competition among gaming consoles. One of the aspects within this fight is definitely identifying what console provides the foremost innovative and also usable game controller.

Thanks to this rivalry, Microsoft revealed its Project Natal for Xbox 360 console at last year’s E3 computer game conference. It has been produced to take on Nintendo’s Wii innovative movement sensor control system. However, Microsoft might deny that but gamers believe that it’s influenced by Wii’s system which is meant to be a direct competitor of Wii.

Playstation’s Eyetoy may well come to mind as you learn about Project Natal due to the fact Eyetoy is simply a movement capturing digital camera similar to Project Natal. But the three dimensional abilities of Project Natal are unquestionably considerably past those of Eyetoy. The actual gameplay results in being controller-less with the help of Project Natal on Xbox 360. Microsoft believes that this attribute will definitely entice much more customers that are not familiar with the game playing world for the reason that these people need not learn to use a controller whilst playing the game titles on Xbox 360.

Players get the chance to interact with the game or its environment directly through the use of every part of their body in order to play the video game. This particular feature will allow for more participation with the game itself as compared with the traditional controller and even to the Wii. Different motions that include feet, body, hands and even head are recognized by Project Natal. But the thing which has still to be revealed is how the system will take care of the running or walking movements of the person.

From the earliest demos of Project Natal it has been proven how the moves of gamers are perfectly projected into the game. There has been favorable impressions of the system plus the players are keen to see how many titles likely to be available at the time Project Natal is launched – the full selection shall be announced at E3 in 2010.

There are some older games which already work with the system such as Burnout Paradise. Ricochet is another video game that has been introduced to the gamers during the E3 2009 Press Conference. Within this video game gamers have to hit the balls that are tossed constantly in the direction of them by using every part of themselves. A game title from Steven Spielberg is in development as well. Another game from Rare who have developed Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark and Goldeneye is likewise in the works. One more game from Bungie known as Halo: Reach, which is the up coming Halo title, is rumored to be designed for Natal technology.

In comparison with Nintendo wii, Microsoft will have much better software support. Even though Nintendo wii has been selling a lot of consoles the actual revenue of the games are doing badly when compared with Xbox and Playstation. Aided by the inclusion of backward compatibility of game titles, it’s theorized that Xbox 360 will never fail to move games off the shelves as it has strong support already.

Want to become one of the first people in the world to get your hands on Microsoft’s Project Xbox Natal without paying a penny? Find out how now! You can win one of five Natals delivered to you in time for launch day at TweetNatal.com – just send a Tweet!

Following two years of dominance by Amazon, it now seems as if the e-book market is about to witness some genuine competition. It’s even possible that the Amazon Kindle may lose its current market leader position.

There are a large number of manufacturers who are getting ready to launch new e-book reader hardware – some before the end of 2009, some early next year. The launch of no fewer than three new readers has been confirmed by Sony. The Sony Daily Edition reader – due to launch in December 2009 – is probably the most significant of these. It will have touch screen controls, 3g wireless connection and will let users borrow e-books on loan from participating lending libraries.

Other manufacturers, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Asus and Plastic Logic all have new readers in the pipeline and with launch dates scheduled for the near future.

As important as the technical aspects of these various readers are, it may not, in the final analysis, be the deciding factor. Currently the ability to select an e-book from Amazon’s massive collection of available titles is a big advantage for them. More than 300,000 titles are available for the Kindle on the Amazon website. The problem is that you must buy your e-books from Amazon. If you then decide to change to a different type of reader, you won’t be able to transfer your Kindle books over to it. It’s possible that some transfer option may be made available in future – but at the moment it’s a case of Kindle e-books for the Kindle reader. In other words it’s a closed system.

Other manufacturers seem to be moving towards a common e-book format – called ePub, which is different to that used by Amazon. This would allow users the licence to port books between different reader devices. It would also allow them to source their e-books from a number of different vendors. In other words, it would give them more freedom of choice.

In the event that the ePub format became an industry wide standard, then it may turn out that Amazon’s current competitive advantage could be transformed into a bit of a liability. Were this to happen, Amazon could certainly recover by ensuring that their e-books were compatible. this could be done using either a translation facility or simply by adopting the new standard.

Whether or not Amazon are able to retain their current dominant position, it looks very much as if the e-book market is going to have some strong competition in future and that industry standards will be put in place sooner rather than later. All of this is excellent news for consumers.

Find out more about theAmazon Kindle ebook reader and learn where you can get free Kindle books direct from Amazon’s website.