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Why Natal Is a Big Deal
Kikizo has an editorial piece evaluating the Xbox 360's upcoming motion-control scheme, Project Natal, and discussing why it's a bigger step forward for interactive gaming than many people think. Quoting: "[Natal] accurately perceives players in 3D space, simultaneously tracking over 48 joints on your body, enabling it to accurately redraw your skeleton in real time as you move about. On a separate 'debug screen' in the closed-doors session, we could witness for ourselves the 'mind's eye' of Natal, visually showing how it completely understands where we are, how we're moving, where we are in 3D space, how far in front of my face my hand is, whatever. It can supposedly even track individual hand and finger movement when it switches into this more finely-tuned mode. ... There is a surprising feeling of tactility and iPhone-like fluidity and precision to the way Natal works." Another interesting bit of news about Natal is that Wii-hacker Johnny Chung Lee is part of the development team. We've discussed some of his creations in the past.
Xbox Project Natal : Felicia Day
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After scanning this article, I'm kind of worried. Everyone's jumping into 3D immersive technology and that's great. Heck, I own a Wii myself ... but one thing I don't like about it is my inability to become really good at a game that relies on WiiMote motion. I don't know what the deal is but the learning curve seems really easy yet once you get there there is no way to differentiate between the 98 percentile player and the 99 percentile player. Now, I haven't gotten addicted to the WiiMote intensive games and I'm grateful that games like Super Smash Bros. don't rely on 3D motion of the WiiMote. It's just too complex and inaccurate. That said, this screenshot really worried me. No controller required or controller optional?
I welcome this new technology but as an avid gamer I'm more than a little bit afraid that with this new technology everyone is going to be expected to take advantage of it on the XBox360. We might be jumping into a new dimension too fast for software and hardware to support it. I know a lot of people would argue with that statement but Wii games feel 'soft' when they are WiiMote intensive and I wonder if Project Natal will feel the same way. Don't get me wrong, they are great games for four people to play while getting loaded.
I guess Nintendo pioneered what is the next step in video games much like Sony pioneering the transition from directional pad to miniature joystick. My question now is really whether or not the PS3 will follow suit. They have to in order to attract these motion titles, don't they?
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They could release an adult version of Project Natal that tracks 49 joints. That would make for a VERY interactive experience.
"iPhone-like fluidity"
gimmie a break. How and why did you manage to fit a reference to the iphone into the summary.
The project Natal is indeed different for an Eye tool of a wii mote. This is a depth sensing camera (you have a RGB image and an image with the distance to the camera). This camera is made by Primesense (you can check theirs patents), it works by projecting a grid (infrared so you can't see it). By analyzing the deformed pattern with a camera, the depth is computed.
Having the deep information is really useful because you get the 3d cloud of the user and with some math, you can guess where is the user and what he is doing. For example you can find the biggest cluster of point (the user). The mass center of these points will give you the position of the user (this is already enough to to a lot of thing).
But the technology is not perfect. It will never be a full replacement for motion capture because it's subject to occlusions and there are a lot of ambiguous cases so the system will always need to cheat.
Did anyone else get out of breath just watching the girl play breakout? I can only see Natal taking off as an exercise tool in regards to using it as a control system. If I could fight effectively using my body then I wouldn't be doing roundhouse kicks at a TV screen, I would be at my local martial arts center sparing. IMO the point of video games is to escape reality.
Project Natal adds a new dimension for your cat to bother you while playing games.
This technology seems kinda fake to me. If you refer back to E3 where they first showcased the device, there were several odd and unexplained things going on. 1) The twitchy avatar character shown (especially when the guy tried to show the bottom of his shoe and couldn't.) seemed to show that the technology wasn't really complete. 2) The other presenters wore dark clothing that seemed to contrast better with their surroundings. Yet, the people in the promotional video wore more colorful clothing. 3) The device only seemed to be able to detect only wide movement and not subtle movement like the promotional video suggested. 4) Most core gamers would like to take advantage of this technology. However, most gamers like to play in dark rooms. It seems to me that it'll be more difficult for this camera to adjust to harsh lighting conditions (dark rooms, lens flare, moving background lights, etc.). 5) It didn't feel as though the camera could decipher between more than one person, because no one (presenters or journalist in the closed room) tried to test it with that in mind. Sure it could detect more than one person; but could it tell the difference between the two? 6) Where are the games that utilize this technology? It seemed that all that was available were tech demos. I'd very much like to see this technology put to use in actual real time environments instead of controlled environments. It gives me the sense that this project is a little premature and may not see the light of day for a long time.
I always see Natal being compared to MotionPlus and Sonys Motion sensing, but I think that isn't really correct. Both MotionPlus and Sonys solution feature more or less classic controllers, but with motion sensing added. Both of them also have heavy focus on wrist movement, while ignoring the rest of the body.
Natal on the other side features no controller at all, thus no buttons and analogsticks, making navigation through pretty much any normal game impossible or at least really cumbersome. On top of that Natal doesn't put emphasis on the wrist/hand, but on the whole body, so you lose a lot of the small movement precision that MotionPlus and Sonys solution have. So Natal really isn't an improvement over other motion sensing solution, as it can't do what those can.
So what is it? Pretty much the same thing as WiiFit or EyeToy, just in an improved form and those didn't exactly turn out as hardcore gamers best friends either. Natal will fail for the same reason. Positional information on where your arms and legs are just aren't enough for precise gameplay, you need buttons for that. Look for example at Ricochet, you have to punch the ball into the game instead of doing the more natural thing of throwing it. Why? Because there is nothing in Natal that could give the game a clear idea when the player let the virtual ball go.
Unless somebody comes up with some actual interesting gameconcepts instead of the full-body-waggle, that Ricochet is, I remain highly skeptical on the future of Natal. At this point it looks like an interesting techdemo, not like a way to control future games.
Natal might be the first step towards the next gaming revolution, but so was the Powerglove, that alone doesn't turn it into a useful peripheral.
By watching:
- all that "movie magic" (as one put it) in the non-live demos
- the highly choreographed demos given on stage
- Microsoft saying this is a very early in development
- Microsoft saying there is no shipping date
- the Milo video suggests a very capable AI far beyond what we could expect today, with reactions to facial expressions and broad-domain speech recognition
- how Vista looked great in that early video when it was called Longhorn and what a dog it is.
I call it bullshit.
This is Microsoft showing a non-product in order to damage sales of its competitors who are selling obviously less-advanced technology (of course - because they can ship a real product right now) than the fantasies they depict in their promotional videos.
Wake me up when they have a product.
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