E3: Devs could add Natal to old games

Microsoft may well allow developers to retrofit their existing games with Project Natal controls, according to Xbox Live and services boss John Schappert.

"We haven't talked too much about that. Can that be done? Certainly it can be done," Schappert told Eurogamer at E3.

"What we did with [the Burnout Paradise tech demo] is that was an early example that the team used to prove out their technology - the software layer and the magic that makes Natal special and unique to Xbox and to Microsoft.

"And so they wanted a finished game they could work on, so they actually created a pretty amazing little piece of hardware that kind of went from Natal and mimicked an Xbox controller, and so that's what they've got working right there."

Schappert admitted the demo, which along with Ricochet and Milo & Kate formed the spine of the E3 presentation, wasn't necessarily the ideal way to do racing games, but was still "amazingly accurate, robust and fun".

Natal project director Alex Kipman had previously told us about other possibilities for handling racing games with the hands-free controller system.

"Game designers will have to come up with what is natural. I can tell you several different options I can think of. You could say, hey, do this to accelerate [mimes pushing a steering wheel forwards] or this [pushes his shoulders forwards] or this to brake [pulls backwards].

"And remember I'm tracking 48 joints individually, so there are so many combinations. I just gave you a few I thought of off the top of my head, but game designers could come up with anything."

Check out our Project Natal page for more videos, previews and news.