Gates Hints At New Control Scheme For 360

In a conversation posted on All Things Digital, Bill Gates has hinted that a new Wii-influenced control system may be in the works for the Xbox 360.

Taking part in a live conversation with Apple founder Steve Jobs, Gates began to discuss the use of 3-D interfaces and the increasing role of the PC as a media center in the home. "And as we get natural input, that will cause a change," he said. "Software is doing vision and so, you know, imagine a game machine where you're just going to pick up the bat and swing it or the tennis racket and swing it."

When it was suggested by another participant that the Nintendo Wii console already has such a system, Gates disagreed. "No, that's not it. You can't pick up your tennis racket and swing it," he said. He then further clarified his vision by saying, "You can't sit there with your friends and do those natural things. That's a 3-D positional device. This is video recognition."

No further details were given, nor were the specifics of the "game machine" mentioned by Gates, but Xbox executives have in the past indicated an interest in developing a motion-sensitive control system for the Xbox 360. Prior to this, however, Gates has been a noted skeptic of the Wii controller, referring to it as a novelty and saying in May 2006 that motion-sensitive controllers are "something that's not mainstream for most games."