In Germany they like to do things bigger and more dramatically. Take for example the recent launch of Kinect for Xbox. A huge interactive art installation using projection mapping was created especially for this event. Although they weren't playing any Kinect game, the idea is that you can play games by moving your body. Keep playing my friends!
Xbox Kinect Launch - Interactive Art Installation from seeper on Vimeo.
Here is another game trailer from Japan that looks intriguing and vaguely similar to Dance! It's Your Stage and Dance Central but of course since it is Wii you will have to hold the controllers. Once Nintendo comes out with a better camera than the Your Shape they too can go controller-less.
Is Playstation Move and Microsoft Kinect the newest motion gaming option? Not quite, Anthony Whitehead has been working in the exergaming space for some time and in 2007 presented his SNAP project (Sensor Networks for Active Play) and more recently revealed some of the data on how effective SNAP could be
Exergame effectiveness: what the numbers can tell us
Sensor Networks for Active Play (SNAP);
Anthony Whitehead, Hannah Johnston, Kaitlyn Fox, Nick Crampton, Joe Tuen
Anthony Whitehead, Nick Crampton, Kaitlyn Fox, & Hannah Johnston (2007). Sensor networks as video game input devices Proceedings of the 2007 conference on Future Play
Kyle Ward and Chris Foy have kept to their word and continued to forge new ways to move, play and game. Their latest venture is a company called Step Evolution (http://www.stepevolution.com) and their new game (ReRave) is a multi-sensored floor pad that goes beyond the four-arrowed (or five) directional dance exergame genre. From what looks to be in essence the largest touch-pad in the world, the gaming options for the lower-body will enormous and to me revolutionary. As we get more glimpses into this new sensor and software, we'll keep you updated. Knowing these two trailblazer, it will be awesome. Keep up the great work guys!
On a side note, I would love to see if they could incorporate fitness games/modes like another product that has yet to see the spotlight. If you're interested in knowing what product I'm referring to, please contact me and I'll point you in the right direction ( exergamelab @ gmail dot com).
Tameka Clanton, a biomechanics researcher at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, demonstrates the iMedic, a program that creates a 3-D X-ray that allows doctors to examine the human body from every angle.
