Sony Demos Natal-Like Control System

An anonymous reader writes "It's not just Microsoft investigating full body, markerless motion capture. Sony has enlisted the help of Swiss firm Atracsys to develop similar technology. Sony has openly discussed the technology with New Scientist, and has realistic expectations for the new system — it can capture broad body gestures but not individual fingers. That's just one trade-off needed in order to develop a real-time system that anyone can use, according to a markerless motion-capture expert." It's still in the early stages of development, but the accompanying video shows the use of face-recognition software as well. The demo game has players moving their heads left or right to position their character, and then smiling to "catch" an object.

Comments

You Have To Be Joking!

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Natal running on PlayStation 2 , 5 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYHr0I-iFHE

What's next on Slashdot? Microsoft 'invents' open source software development?

Re:MS Ripped Off Sony's Skill Points

[NeutronCowboy]

That skill point is exactly like the point system in Leisure Suit Larry (the first one, since you're too young to know anything but PS2 games). Heck, you can even compare it to end-level score system in the first Sonic.

What is it with Sony fanboys that they are the most neurotically defensive gamers around? They're beating even the gloating Nintendo fanboys of the 80s, the paranoid Sega fanboys of the 90s and the smug Amiga fanboys.

Newsflash: everything's been done before. It doesn't matter if something's new, only if it works. In the meantime, stop foaming at the mouth. Sony will survive without you.

Re:Sony demoed this at the same time as Natal

[HalAtWork]

Sony demoed this system at the same show Natal was announced at.

No, what you're talking about is the dual wand system. This article is about a system that "uses stereo cameras to watch a player and, like a pair of eyes, to judge depth." It will probably be used for eyetoy-like games and other full body motion games.

Personally I can't wait for the wand system for the pointer functionality, since RE5 will make use of it. It was pretty disappointing going from Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition to RE5, and always wished there was a Wii version this game. The version with the wand update will marry HD graphics with the most advanced control system for an RE game.