I’ve heard some people talking about the latest technology in control schemes for video games.  Obviously the Wii’s controllers were a huge success, and I think Wii MotionPlus will make it even better.  But lately there’s been a lot of hype for Microsoft’s new full-body control called Natal and Sony’s new Motion Controller.  There’s a lot of potential for these new systems, and right now the hype is abounding.

But before everyone gets too excited about full-body motion controls, I want to remind you this has been tried before.  There was a product called Sega Activator for the Sega Genesis game console.  With it, your body was the controller.  Here’s the instructional video for it:

It’s fairly obvious why that didn’t catch on.  Now it looks generic.  But consider that this was revolutionary and cutting-edge at the time.  Obviously the company thought it was a great idea and worth the money required to release it.

But all that aside, that doesn’t mean Natal will or won’t work well — it just means we’ll have to wait and see.  I’m hoping they can pull this off, and that the next generation of gaming will be even more immersive and more awesome.