Microsoft still wants to turn your living room into a video game

Microsoft has been playing around with living room projection for video games for a while now, most recently with IllumiRoom. Now Microsoft Research has a new solution called RoomAlive. Much like IllumiRoom, the RoomAlive proof-of-concept aims to turn your room into a video game through a system of projector-depth camera units, which can be combined through a scalable, distributed framework. "The projector-depth camera units are individually auto-calibrating, self-localizing, and create a unified model of the room with no user intervention," says the company. "We investigate the design space of gaming experiences that are possible with RoomAlive and explore methods for dynamically mapping content based on room layout and user position." Currently Microsoft is exploring video game capabilities for the concept, including a Whack-a-Mole style game, and a shooter in which players control a soldier who can run around your living room. Of course, don't expect to see RoomAlive in your living room anytime soon -- Microsoft said that IllumiRoom cost far too much for the average consumer, so it's clear that RoomAlive is going to be a tad expensive too.