Microsoft Xbox to turn your living room into a gaming room with IllumiRoom

While this year’s CES has been mostly tablets and smartphones, the gaming side of technology hasn’t been quiet. Microsoft had showcased its proof of concept for the Xbox,  dubbed IllumiRoom. According to AllThingsD, the IllumiRoom aims to turn your entire living room into a gaming room by using projectors to overlay images from the TV screen to all of the walls in the room.

This is very likely in preparation of the long-overdue announcement of a next-gen Xbox. Eric Rudder, Chief Technical Strategy Officer, Microsoft, introduced IllumiRoom onstage during a Samsung press conference. Animated snowflakes appeared on the wall when it snowed, stars floated around the room when traveling through space and the walls rippled to imitate the reverberation of a gunshot in an FPS.

Microsoft used a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector for IllumiRoom. Rudder said that the technology could be used to enhance anything—even TV shows and movies. According to Microsoft, the system uses the appearance and geometry of the room, which was captured by Kinect, to adopt projected visuals in real-time without the need to pre-process the graphics.

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Turn your whole room into a gaming room! (image credit: GettyImages)

According to an earlier report, rumours suggest that the next-gen Xbox will see the light of day at the upcoming E3. The rumour is fuelled thanks to Director of Xbox Live’s programming department Lawrence Hryb, who set up a timer on his blog that is counting down to the upcoming event, which is five months away.

This is similar to previous rumours that stated that the console will make its first appearance in the fall of 2013. The emergence of these rumours can easily be attributed to the fact that the current generation of consoles has been the longest one so far. While previous generations only lasted for five years, the current generation has lasted for seven.

Back in December, the existence of next-gen consoles by both Sony and Microsoft was revealed through a survey hosted by Capom. Capcom had held a survey as it was “gathering feedback from consumers on projects they would like to see from Capcom in the DIGITAL game space (not retail).” This hints towards a focus on digital distribution in the next consoles.

We had earlier reported that the next-gen console from Microsoft, rumoured to be called either the Xbox 720 or the Durango, will be seeing a release in late 2013. The rumours are also gaining momentum because developers have already gotten their hands on dev kits for the Durango. This could also force Sony to unveil the next PlayStation, as again, developers have already gotten their hands on dev kits. Considering the game release schedule, and how there aren’t many big titles set to be released after May, this could point towards the next-gen consoles from both Sony and Microsoft being closer than we think.