In November of this year, Xbox will launch it’s newest and brightest innovation: the Xbox Kinect. This new “controller” will sit atop your television much like the Nintendo Wii’s sensor bar. Except now you will not need a hand-held controller. All you will need is a wave of your hand.

This technology seems ahead of our time. You can browse music and movies on your screen with verbal commands or flip through CD covers with a flick of the wrist. You can even talk to your system.

What this system really allows for, however, is truly interactive gameplay targeted at a much broader audience. Before, when some people would not even dream of diving into Modern Warfare or Call of Duty, games will be available that cater to both genders and all ages, which opens up the living room to all.

Now, five-year-olds can run with tigers and lions with the game “Kinectimals.” Families can sit together and watch movies in the living room. A group of girlfriends can get together and hone their dancing skills with “Dance Central.” A mother and her daughter can race hurdles against each other and a father and son can play a game of tennis with “Kinect Sports.” An ISU student can work out in the comfort of their apartment with Xbox’s “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.”

Race a car with your hands, do yoga, explore your own exotic jungle island, or “take your dance moves to the next level.” This new system has it all.

The Kinect connects. It will sell for $299.99, or as much as a 250 gigabyte Xbox 360, and will launch at exactly the right time of year (just over a month before the Christmas season). Predictably, boys and girls, teens, young adults and perhaps parents will be vying for this system. The only thing Xbox can do wrong is not have enough of them.

The bigger picture here is that, although at first glance this seems like one more way to sit in a living room, families may find entertainment and “kinect”-edness through this new gaming system that others do not provide. Teenage girls and their friends now have one more activity to add to the slumber party list, and boys of all ages have a new system that plays all their games without the inconvenience of holding a controller – everyone can be a controller themselves.

And, in lieu of the constant stream of criticism about obesity in America, perhaps this gaming system will indirectly pair with the Wii and get people up and moving again. They offer “Zumba Fitness” and “Kinect Sports,” and even “Kinect Adventures,” where players can navigate rapids and go through obstacle courses in exotic lands. We all have another reason to get up, get moving and really go.

This phenomena of interactive game systems, namely the Nintendo Wii and upcoming Xbox Kinect, may yet be detrimental as well. Are they too good to be true? Not exactly. But not everything with pros comes without cons.

These may be seen through a potentially stagnant lifestyle, where individuals simply go through the motions or leave the house less frequently. As college students, we are no stranger to the other phenomenon that is  social networking. Some see these services as dangerous, others see it as a way of sharing much more with the people they hold close (and sometimes not-so-close, as the Kin, also from Microsoft, so adequately demonstrates).

But, regardless, we encourage this use of new technology for the good. Using this to “kinect” might be a means into the future that we have all been waiting impatiently for.