Though Nintendo had brought motion controls to the masses with the Nintendo Wii, it was Microsoft's announcement of Project Natal at E3 2009 that showed what the technology was truly capable of. Natal, which would eventually be rebranded Kinect, provided players with the ability to control their games using their entire body, rather than a control pad and sensors. It was deemed so vital by Microsoft that Kinect was part of the package when the Xbox One was finally released, and Microsoft were quick to take the credit for their innovation. But, hang on a minute... Once again, it was SEGA who can lay claim to making the first attempt at a feature that utilised full body control thanks to their Activator, which was released a massive 17 years before Kinect. The system made use of an octagonal ring that was placed on the floor. Each side of the octagon represented a button on a control pad and the player had to move a part of their body over the relevant side to get the character they were playing as to react accordingly. Perhaps unsurprisingly it failed to take off, even though the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were adapted to make use of it. The device was plagued by inaccuracy and most who used it soon ended up going back to the control pads of old. Are there any we missed? Perhaps something even older that trumps what we've included? Let us know in the comments!
Lee Price is a writer for 411mania.com and Starburst Magazine, which is published in the UK. He is currently working as a freelance writer. He hopes to one day fund his addiction to video games by writing about video games, and he maintains a sporadically updated blog at leesrandombulls*it.wordpress.com
