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Microsoft Debuts Full-Body Controller-less Gaming At E3
quintin3265 writes "At today's Electronic Entertainment Expo press briefing, Microsoft unveiled Project Natal, a technology that eliminates the controller from gaming on the Xbox 360. In one demo, a player used her arms and legs to hit balls in an attempt to destroy a brick wall, and in another game, an employee threw virtual "paint" on a canvas to create a painting, even drawing an elephant using a silhouette feature. An accompanying video also demonstrated automatic login using facial recognition, videoconferencing with other Xbox Live members, and participating in a gameshow against another family through the Internet using speech recognition."
This sounds good, but not the end all. The Wii controller can make things fun, but anyone who has used it much know how tiring it can be to have to stand or use full body motions for games for an extended period. Sometimes I just want to veg out on the couch and play a game. If I have to flail my arms all over the place I'm going to often consider it more work than fun.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I'm sure it will work fine for some games, that is until someone walks behind you or moves around in the background to ruin your game.
Also, multiplayer will require a huge room and lots of sensors. But perhaps Microsoft expects people to play online, a console for people with no real friends.
The concept of "moving your body to make stuff happen" isn't novel, no. IMHO the value of the concept is beyond question, it's purely a matter of execution - i.e. whether it works. It would seemingly be extremely difficult to get the latency low enough. If the latency is low, even if the motion tracking is fairly crude, they should be able to use it to make a DDR "dance pad" (without the pad) that doesn't wear out and break. But heck, if it worked well enough, they could take all the electronics out of a normal gamepad and just watch your fingers instead. (I'm sure it doesn't have that level of acuity though).
Hmm...
In one demo, a player used her arms and legs to hit balls in an attempt to destroy a brick wall, and in another game, an employee threw virtual "paint" on a canvas to create a painting, even drawing an elephant using a silhouette feature.
Sounds great, but I'd be much more impressed if they had a live demo with random untrained people. Even in the demo video, you can see a noticeable input lag, particular when the guy does his "victory dance" at around 27 seconds.
The devil is in the details with these things, Microsoft is certainly not the first to try at something like this.
Do not want!
Seriously, as someone who has been gaming for over 17 years, most of that on PC I don't want my games and their systems dumbed down so that someone's mom can maybe enjoy splattering paint against the wall. I *enjoy* my games being complex, having a learning curve, and not simply something where I flail my arms wildly and stuff happens. If this kind of crap is the future of gaming, say goodbye to serious adult gaming, as everything will be Nintendoo Fisher Price crap, and dumbed down and made cute to appeal to a bigger target market.
Get off my lawn!
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
Other than figuring out how much you weigh this ONE accessory seems to be able to handle the functions of the WiiMote, Nunchuck, BalanceBoard and Motion Plus, without you having to purchase 4 of each and all the batteries to run them.
O and it ads a camera with mic / voice support. You can get a mic for the Wii now as well but I think animal crossing is the only game that supports it so far.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
The EyeToy/PlayStation Eye has had some pretty amazing demos too, although I think you're right to point out that depth perception is new. This is basically two EyeToys, plus some decent software taking advantage of that fact. I think the Achilles' heel of this kind of technology is the install base, though. The launch will be neat, but more developers aren't going to sign on unless it's wildly popular. You could do an awful lot more with the PlayStation Eye, too, but interest always wanes after E3. I'm not against Natal (except for the name), I hope it succeeds, but history doesn't seem to be on its side...
Sendou Wave Kick!!
"Everything old is new again."
Well it isn't a surprise. A lot of these concepts are things people have wanted forever. The problem was that the technology to make them work well was prohibitively expensive if even available. The Powerglove is a good example. It was a piece of shit, but there were and are high end controllers like that which work well. It just would have been $2000 to make.
So it is no surprise that with more advanced technology, there is a resurgence. Now that the shit actually works, people want to try it.
Everything old is new again. Around and around we go...
No kidding. "Full-Body Controller-less Gaming" has already been invented. It's called "sport".
Because I can get together with some friends and play a real game of Family Feud on the spot, without having to come up with categories and such first, just by going outside and getting a ball.
From purely a tech perspective, it's pretty cool. The facial recognition to login and being able to control the dashboard by waving your hands was impressive. Ultimately though, much like the Wii, I don't think this will lead to many games that will interest me. Maybe even less so than the Wii, since the wiimote at least had buttons.
Now, with a better sensor system, you have another problem - it's still just a game, the players don't really know how to sword-fight.
I thought that increased realism was part of the point, though. I'd be interested in a swordfighting game that required learning something resembling a real-world skill, so that I'm prepared to... uh, battle skeleton warriors. More seriously, it seems like there's new gameplay to be found if I have to actually try different parries and attacks instead of just hitting Attack, or even High/Low Attack like in a Street Fighter game. If people don't really want anything resembling a realistic experience, why bother with a Wiimote-style controller at all instead of an old-fashioned controller? I guess the test of this reasoning is, would there be a market for a Guitar Hero imitator where the skills carry over somewhat to actual guitar, instead of being basically Simon with music?
Revive the Constitution.
There's a long history of innovative, unconventional game controllers. Most of them are nothing more than interesting historical footnotes. Few people bought them and few games used them.
What makes the Wiimote different is that it's the standard controller for the console. It comes bundled with every single console sold. That's why game developers actually use it: they aren't restricting their market.
If Microsoft decides to bundle this thing with every Xbox sold, then it's a big deal. If it's an optional accessory that you have to buy separately, then it's another historical footnote.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
"Blue" ... ... ...
"Blue!"
"BLUE!"
"BLOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Voice recognition ain't that great. Better get practicing that Midwest accent. I have great doubts that you will get the in game Richard Karn to understand "Bar Harbor" as someone from Bar Harbor would actually say it. Of course that word would have to be in the system. It will be like a text adventure where only special words get recognized. Fun!