Microsoft Spin Time: Kinect to Change Channel based on Your Shirt

Marc Whitten - Corporate Vice President, Xbox LIVE - has been talking up Kinect with promises of new server-side voice recognition after the release of the system. However, he's also placed the idea into the marketing-sphere that, for example, Manchester United fans can get their shirts to do the work of changing TV commentary.

Speaking to Edge, he says, "What you will be able to do with Kinect in the future is - imagine that I'm watching a Premier League game and it sees that I've got a Man United jersey on. Why doesn't it change the commentary to be pro-Man U? Why don't you flip it in with the local commentator versus the global one to get a more personalised experience?"

Now, that is, of course, a "What if" rather than a "This will happen". But that's the power of marketing a new gadget. You can almost mask a "What if" as a "This will happen".