Natal Technology a Gift To the Disabled, Amputees

SlappingOysters writes "Natal could be capable of a lot more than was originally thought. Gameplayer has some information about how the technology will function in multiplayer, and goes on to reveal how it is intelligent enough to give full-bodied virtual movement to disabled gamers. The site had previously revealed that the Natal dev kits have been with developers for a couple of months, suggesting that the device may not be as far off as has been suggested by some media outlets."

Comments

That's Terrible!

[Anonymous Coward]

First God gives these people a crippled body.

Now Microsoft wants to give them a crippled video game system?!

And my dog

[goombah99]

My cat keeps crushing my dog at video tennis. The gold fish like bowling.

I'll believe it when I see it

[QuantumG]

More likely the game will refuse to move your virtual arm/leg just as your disabled body does.

In other words: Microsoft's Natal Adds Insult To Injury.

Possibly, but unlikely

[Zerth]

Much like most game companies never bother to consider color blindness when picking their display schemes, very few will consider the disabled for motion control. Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri got a nice patch for that, though.

And you probably know how many console games still force one layout or give you a few presets, despite it being relatively trivial to remap controllers these days. I imagine even fewer will allow you to change "swing your arm" to "twitch your nose" after spending weeks training the gesture recognition for arm movements.

Re:Possibly, but unlikely

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

To be honest, you can't ask companies to consider *all* disabilities. I agree that, for instance, a ramp should be mandatory when staircases are present to access a building, because in that case, wheelchair-bound people just cannot access the building on their own. But color blindness is hardly disabling, it's merely an inconvenience.

A friend of mine is color blind, and his solution for hard-to-see computer images was to disconnect the red VGA pin and reconnected it in parallel with the green. His display is truly atrocious, but apparently much easier to see for him and he likes it that way. Anyway, just saying, a bit of solder and 5 minutes may take care of all problems with video game colors for color-blind people, so I don't think video game companies should bear that burden really.