Project Natal, which Microsoft showed off at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, could revolutionise the games industry, IT contractors may be interested to discover.

Ally Millar, editor-in-chief of Geeks.co.uk, said that the controller-free design is a real change in the tide.

"They have developed seminal technology other manufacturers will fail to best for another few years," he explained.

He said that this has created a major buzz because it is being seen by analysts as the top of the technological tree for another few decades.

IT contractors and games firms will be competing with one another to create the most all-encompassing body-motion orientated games, Mr Millar predicted.

The technology works by monitoring the movements of the body and facial expressions and comes complete with voice control capacity.

It has been designed so that when it is produced it will be compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles around the world, with over 39 million of these devices having already been sold.