Microsoft Advances Research In Their Roomalive- New Concept Towards Futuristic Gaming

RoomAlive game is a combination of 2 technologies that is Microsoft’s Kinect motion-tracking system and LCD projector. The latest demonstration of the video was released about the UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) for the ACM Symposium at Honolulu. This video was released in current week.

RoomAlive, Microsoft’s XBOX game can literally make your entire room come alive. The gamer’s entire room will be changed into an interactive gaming world and the environment. This new game of Microsoft came into life nearly two years ago and still was able to gain much hype and attention from the marketing companies.

At last the marketing people focused on changing the name of the game from Beamatron to IllumiRoom, until they finally froze on a name which is atleast 50 percent decent when compared to the previous versions.

Kinect motion-tracking system by Microsoft

This new motion tracking system actually utilizes Fusion room-modelling technology and the 3D map of the environment is constructed for the game. This infrastructure construction also includes the floor, walls, furniture and everything present in the room at the time of playing the game.

This system further amalgamates the room model with the help of the plugin given with the Unity game engine and then to a projector which displays all the images required for creating a complete gaming and interactive experience with the people present in the room.

Room Alive is Microsoft’s IllumiRoom’s 2.0 version. Last year at CES, the Company had demonstrated the first version of the IllumiRoom research project, which was able to generate an overwhelming response and attention among the people. The demonstration highlighted how the game can be extended from our TV to our walls. The demo was more than a short display of the concept, but according to the company this was still just a starting phase of the research.

The video projectors and the kinetic combination of the RoomAlive’s might be bit costliest now and probably might be very large for the living rooms of many people. Despite the current roadblocks, the Company is looking forward to a future which will show that this technology is very small and low priced.

Although a similar virtual reality experiment was created by Sony, Microsoft’s RoomAlive system has the capability to automatically detect the walls and floors for their users to get the entire gaming experience to reach anywhere.

Currently the High definition projector of the RoomAlive can cost a person around $600 and this doesn’t include the price of $49 for V1 Kinect, the motor control and the RoomAlive’s software package. At the moment the entire set can cost around $1000. In comparison to this system, a person will able to own Xbox by paying around $499.

According to the Spokesperson of Microsoft, the company still has lots of exploring in RoomAlive. The company is working towards a gaming future which will enable the game to utilize all the articles available as part of their system and game.