Watch Microsoft's RoomAlive Prototype Turn an Entire Room Into a Game

It's not quite a holodeck, but it's not far off either.

by Emanuel Maiberg on October 5, 2014

Last year, there was some speculation that Microsoft's IllumiRoom project, which uses a Kinect and a projector to extend a game world from the confines of the TV screen to the rest of the room, would be used with the Xbox One. Microsoft later explained that the technology was too expensive to include with a home console, but the company didn't stop working on it.

A new video posted to YouTube by Microsoft Research shows the progress it made with IllumiRoom, now called RoomAlive, which doesn't even use a TV. Instead, the new prototype uses a Kinect and a number of video projectors to scan every surface in the room to turn it into an "augmented entertainment experience."

It can project images to fit surfaces, and allow players to interact with them by detecting their movements. In one part of the video, you can see a user playing whack-a-mole, chasing a creature around the room, and in another we can see a how a gun can be used to fire at targets as they pop up on different walls.

"In the future we will explore approaches and experiences that involve multiple users and multi-user viewpoint rendering," the team that created RoomAlive said. "We will also explore new ways to increase immersion with spatialized sound. RoomAlive provides a glimpse of how a scalable multi-projector system can transform any room into an immersive augmented gaming experience. Many new and exciting possibilities remain to be explored."

What games would you like to see take advantage of this technology? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-microsofts-roomalive-prototype-turn-an-entir/1100-6422755/

Sounds like Illumiroom 2.0 and we'll probably never hear about it ever again.

6 projectors?  You gotta be kidding me...

this looks like something I don't want.

It is from researches at MS - don't expect it to be a product ever.

They should have just made a Ghostbusters game like that. With the proton beams burning the wall. Instant win.

Interesting but before this can become a thing there will be wall papers made of LEDs.

Exciting technology.

Obviously not exactly in a usable form yet, but you gotta start somewhere. Curious to see how it will develop!

I liked Illumiroom better. As it only needed low quality graphics it could work as an add-on to REAL games. Wii U can produce two pictures at the same time (TV & Gamepad) so Xbox One should be able to produce a second sub-HD picture to the projector. This way the Illumiroom Is optional, the picture will always be generated by the games but only those that have an Illumiroom projector will see it. It will take some processing power, but if Wii U can make two pictures without any performance drops so should XboxOne. " We played through the initial campaign level with GamePad mirroring enabled and disabled and found that performance between both runs was basically a match. " http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-black-ops-2-wii-u-face-off

All this needs now is five or so of those rooms connected to giant robotic arms constantly rearranging their placement while you walk through them, with projectors changing the environment making the same rooms always unique.