The last few Christmas seasons have been absolutely dominated by the Nintendo Wii video gaming console.  A few years ago, it was almost impossible to be able to even find a Nintendo Wii and people were paying premium prices for one.  Then, the last two Christmas seasons have been dominated by the Nintendo Wii Fit balance board.  Well, things are going to be changing this year.  The hottest Christmas toys 2010 are going to be Microsoft’s Project Natal accessory for the Xbox 360, and the Sony Playstation 3 motion controller (currently codenamed Arc).  Each of these accessories is going to make a huge splash in the video gaming world, and they will definitely be some of the hottest sellers during this Christmas season.

Microsoft’s Project Natal (still a code name) is a revolutionary new way to control your video games and entertainment center.  You can use true hand motions without even having to use a controller to control what is going on screen.  The promotion materials for it say that “You are the controller.”  For fighting games, you’ll be able to literally fight the character on the screen.  For driving games, you’ll hold your arms out and turn your hands to drive.  There will be even a new brand of Project Natal games that come out that utilize the motion camera in such a cool new way. Even for watching movies on your Xbox 360, you’ll be able to use hand gestures to browse through the menus.

The Sony Playstation 3 motion controller is a lot like the Nintendo Wii controllers.  It uses the Playstation EyeToy to sense a glowing red ball on the end of the wand controller.  That way it can track distance and motion, and control what you are doing on screen with the remote.  Critics have complained that it is a lot like the Nintendo Wii controller, although it definitely is a step up.  But, if you already have a Nintendo Wii, then you won’t really be missing out on too much with the Playstation motion-controlling device.