Itagaki: Project Natal is "completely awesome"

Japanese game designer Tomonobu Itagaki, behind classics such as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, has described Microsoft's Project Natal as "completely awesome."

Perhaps it's no surprise that the developer behind the Xbox's Ninja Gaiden is incredibly complementary about Microsoft's new tech, but it's still worth hearing him out.

In an interview with 1up, the previous Tecmo employee Tomonobu Itagaki, claims that the device is so revolutionary that it can increase freedom of game design by "a thousand times."

"Last night, after E3 closed, I got to touch Natal in the Microsoft booth. It is completely awesome. It's an absolutely revolutionary device that increases the freedom of game design by like, a hundred, or maybe more like a thousand times," Itagaki-san told 1up.com

"I got to play with it, and I can tell you it will definitely lead to some great games. It has no latency in motion recognition, so I'm convinced that the guys behind that tech are complete geniuses."

Plaster it on the box Microsoft: Itagaki loves Project Natal.

It's good to hear that a developer of hardcore action games is interested in the technology, since it was previously thought that the game would only be focused toward casual gaming. The project's director Alex Kipman also sees the potential, telling Eurogamer:

"We'll have games that are specifically designed to work only with Natal - not just arcadey games, but real, hardcore, triple-A titles."

"Think about a first-person shooter where I'm using the controller but I'm doing facial tracking by just moving around and looking round corners," Kipman added.

You can read more about Microsoft's Project Natal by visiting our previous run-down on the device.