Xbox 720 Rumors: Is Microsoft Working on a Wearable Controller?

With the Wii U launch window just around the corner, the industry is starting to shift its attention to what Microsoft and Sony have in store for their next consoles. The big story seems be Microsoft's next controller which reports claim will be wearable.

An patent application filed by Microsoft includes a summary of wearable electromyography-based controller that can measure muscle active and will be able to control devices such as a gaming console, television, and even stereo.

In the last few generations of gaming, Nintendo has been the company to revolutionize the gaming pad. The Wiimote thrust motion-controlled gaming into the mainstream and their new Wii U Gamepad hopes to popularize what the company calls "asymmetrical" gameplay. In this type of gaming, players will be playing together, but engaging in different tasks depending on who is playing off the TV and who is playing off the game pad.

Microsoft's moveable controller would certainly further the development of motion based gameplay, but how far would it revolutionize it? Nintendo's Wiimote showed limitations and the subsequent concoctions from Sony and Microsoft's Kinect didn't really top it in any way. Could a wearable controller provide the full-fledged immersion people have been hoping for? Microsoft's Kinect had a sensor that read people's motions and reacted to them. But the content available for the console, coupled with the limitations of the device never really let it take over the industry as the Wiimote. Microsoft could have an ace up its sleeve, but no one will know for a few years.