The major innovator that’s not a console maker

Which was the most innovative, risk-taking company at the E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles this week - Microsoft with its Project Natal sensor, Sony with its “glowing orb” stick or Nintendo with its Wii Vitality Sensor?

How about none of the above? The answer after the jump.

Ubisoft.

Yes, this leading publisher appears to be working on a motion-sensing controller, a Surface-type computer project and the first major 3D stereoscopic game, all at the same time.

At its press conference on Monday, Ubisoft scoffed at waiting around until “December 2010″ for Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera to arrive.

Instead, it would produce its own motion-sensing camera in time for this holiday season and bundle it with its Your Shape fitness game for the Nintendo Wii.

It also showed a trailer for its forthcoming real-time strategy PC game calledR.U.S.E. It featured two players sat at a table with an embedded screen, rather like Microsoft’s surface computer.

They marshalled and deployed their forces with sweeping gestures of their hands across the tabletop. It looked very futuristic and mocked-up, but as Ubisoft later demonstrated at its booth, the technology is more than vapourware.

After the press conference I spoke to Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft chief executive, and James Cameron, director of movie blockbusters such as Titanic and a leading proponent of 3D technology.

Mr Guillemot said of the R.U.S.E. table: “It’s real and it works”, and he explained his approach to hardware innovation thus:

“Everything that is invented that can give better accessibility to the game and allowing gamers to express themselves, it is helping us get more people to play and the learning experience is much faster.”

Mr Cameron (pictured) had spoken at length at the press conference about his new movie Avatar,four years in the making and due for release in December.

The 3D big-screen experience will be preceded by the release of the game in stereoscopic 3D, requiring gamers to wear special glasses to get the full experience on a television.

“I think gaming will actually drive 3D into the home more than movies,” he said.

“I think that after everyone sees the Avatar game, they will want more.”

That is something Ubisoft appears to be betting on with its market-leading initiative. All three of its innovations would have appeared to be gimmicks in the past, but the industry has realised it now has the technological ability to perfect this hardware and a market of accessory-addicted gamers that can’t wait to have it delivered to them.