Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera Date, Details Revealed

The most recent podcast recorded by Microsoft's Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb dealt primarily with the upcoming Xbox Live dashboard update, and included an interview with Xbox Live product marketing lead Aaron Greenberg. The interview touched on a number of enhancements that will be introduced by the update, including support for the Xbox 360's upcoming camera, Xbox Live Vision. “Essentially what we've done here is we've built this update camera-ready,” commented Greenberg. “Over half our users are connected to Live today, so the majority of Xbox 360 owners will be be able to update this and their Xbox 360 will be ready the camera launches.” He added: “It will be a 'plug-and-play' experience for them.” Greenberg also stated that while Xbox Live Vision is currently slated to launch during the fourth quarter of 2006, he mentioned that a more specific date of September 19 has already been finalized for both for North America and Europe. There was no mention as to how much the camera will cost. Some of the most interesting features discussed during the podcast for the camera include support for games such as Activision's World Series of Poker and Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Vegas, both of which will utilize the camera to take images of the player's face in order to make the main character look like the player. In addition, while the update will be made available initially for users to download over Xbox Live, Greenberg noted that the same update will be added to future game releases during the fourth quarter of 2006 for users who cannot or otherwise choose not to access Xbox Live with the Xbox 360, so that they too will be able to apply the new dashboard update.