A German blogger by the name of Erzengel360 has been doing some extensive research on the Xbox 360’s upcoming camera, and found things that may possibly point towards hidden features enabling it to compete with the Sony EyeToy and the upcoming Nintendo Revolution controller.

The main thing he found is patent 7,003,427, filed on behalf of Microsoft by the name of “Relative range camera calibration” on August 25th 2004, with a later update one week ago on February 21st 2006. To summarize, this patent describes a technique employing two cameras to analyze a three-dimensional scene to subsequently be able to determine object movement and their relative paths in time and space. See image below for illustration:

The patent does not explicitly state anywhere that it would apply to gaming, but in several locations it does mention possible connectivity to game pads and joysticks, and the examples are pretty obviously focused on tracking human activity inside a living room. Erzengel360 consequently went on to research possible applications, and found the website Swissranger, which has some example videos of comparable techniques at work.

He then went on to bluntly ask Microsoft what they were planning to do with this technology. In a variation on the regular “Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation” they actually told him the specs of Project “Vision” will become clear at a later time. What this implies is anyone’s guess.

So is the Xbox 360 Camera going to be capable of tracking movement inside your living room, thus competing with Nintendo’s motion-sensitive Revolution controller and Sony’s EyeToy? Only time will tell whether Microsoft has intended this patent to be used in Xbox 360 technology or not. Until then this is quite a believable rumor but nothing certain.

Many thanks to Matthias Burkhardt for pointing us towards Xbox-lan.com!