Microsoft’s Xbox 360 motion and voice recognition technology, Project Natal, hasn’t even had a firm release date attached to it yet, and has had only slightly flattering celebrity previews to date, but according to a conversation between Microsoft’s Hsiao-Wuen Hon and the Sydney Morning Herald, the second iteration of the technology is already in the works.

In the article, Hsiao-Wuen Hon, who is the managing director at Microsoft Research Asia, was in the process of defending Microsoft’s presence in the marketplace as not only an industry mainstay, but an innovation leader as well, which creates and invents products in equal measure and thinks about the future of those products well into the future, as Hon says:

“And when we do invent something first like the [Project] Natal kind of scenario, while we have a researcher working with the product group for the first version, we already have a researcher thinking about the second version down the road so we certainly hope we will continue to be holding that technology. I really love what Microsoft is doing.”

Project Natal is currently slated to release later this year, with support confirmed for Lionhead’s upcoming Fable III, but no support coming for EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 or Bungie’s Halo: Reach.

You can read through the rest of El33tonline’s coverage of Project Natal for a bunch more fascinating information regarding the device, as well as developer video interviews discussing the technology.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald via 1Up