Microsoft in Talks to Acquire 3DV for $35 Million
18 02 2009According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Microsoft is set to buy 3DV, the developer of a markerless motion capture technology called ZCam. Their system, which is something of a next-generation Playstation Eyetoy, should open up new doors for future game development on the Microsoft Xbox console line. If it works as well as advertised, the possibilities are endless for new styles of game controls, but without having tried it out myself, I can’t say whether this is going to revolutionize gaming or be a neat add-on like the Eyetoy was for Sony.
According to the CrunchGear blog, the company had actually raised $38.6 million over the past 12 years, so despite the large dollar number, it’s hard to judge whether this will be viewed as a big win for 3DV or not.
I’ve seen a ZCam prototype. I’m skeptical about its performance. It was very sensitive to the color of the objects. For example it couldn’t give the depth of the top of my head because my hair is black. So if someone wears dark cloths I have doubt it can give a good estimate of the depth. I remember (but not sure) it uses infrared, and the limitations are due to that.