Microsoft makes big push for new game audience

LOS ANGELES (AP) — To appeal to families ready to graduate from the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Corp. wants to build on the success of the Wii’s motion-capture wand - by getting rid of the wand entirely.

On Monday, Microsoft detailed its new Kinect game technology, coming this fall for the Xbox 360 game console. Once known as Project Natal, the Kinect system recognizers users’ gestures and voices, so you can control on-screen avatars in racing, action and sports games just by moving your body. Microsoft showed off a “Star Wars” game, coming in 2011, that will use Kinect to let players swing virtual lightsabers from their living rooms.

Kinect’s voice feature also means you can say “pause” or “play” when watching a movie on the Xbox instead of reaching for the remote. And it has a video chat function that can connect people from different sides of the country, as Microsoft demonstrated Monday at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, a video game conference with 45,000 industry insiders.

Kinect will launch Nov. 4 in North America, Microsoft said. Prices were not disclosed, and it’s not clear whether Kinect will come with new Xboxes or only be sold separately. The technology works with existing systems, including a new version of the Xbox console that goes on sale next week. It’s smaller, sleeker and comes with built-in Wi-Fi and a 250 gigabyte hard drive. The new Xbox will cost $299, which previously got you a hard drive with half the capacity.

Until now the Xbox has been mainly known as the device to play hard-core shooter games such as “Call of Duty” and “Halo.”