Microsoft’s E3 press conference included some huge announcements; Halo Reach, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Facebook and Twitter implementation, Left 4 Dead 2…the hits just kept rolling on.  But nothing they could have announced would have been as jaw-dropping as the details on the Natal project seems to be.

Microsoft has announced a controller-free system, called the Natal Project, that acts as a sort of motion-controller, motion-capturer, facial and voice recognition system.  The system allows people to play games and navigate the Xbox 360’s menus without any sort of hand-held controller.  Natal can figure out who you are, where you are, what you sound like and what you’re doing, and recreate all of it on-screen in games.  Additionally, the system, was shown photographing and recognizing a skateboard which was them used in a skating game, indicating that real-world items will be instantly “uploadable” into games.

As far as actual playable games go, two were shown at the press conference.  One had a nimble young lady defelecting dodgeballs in a virtual room, and the other was a virtual paint studio where a rep did his best Bob Ross impression, drawing us an elephant on a painted landscape, complete with happy little trees.  Both games seemed extremely responsive, and appeared to have 1-to-1 accuracy as far as matching the player's movements.

On a personal note, I’d just like to say this:  HOLY CRAP!  THAT WAS THE CRAZIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.  OH MY GOD!  SONY AND NINTENDO MUST BE SHITTING THEIR PANTS! MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR SO HARD THAT I CAN’T FIND IT!

Of course, the few tech demos we’ve seen don’t guarantee that the system will work as well as we hope, but if it does, this could be a huge game changer.  It’s the kind of thing that, if it were released as part of the Xbox 360 at launch, there might not be a console war at all.  We’ll see what Sony and Nintendo can do to top this, but the bar has been raised pretty high from the beginning.  Good luck, fellas.