Slashdot Mirror
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.
Sony demoed this system at the same show Natal was announced at. Both Microsoft and Sony were trying to come up with answers to the Wii.
Microsoft's system is, if you think about it, pretty clunky. It can't recognize fingers either (or it didn't at the demo).
Sony's is a little better, in that at least you have a controller with real buttons to denote actions.
But I think both, are in the end not as good as the Wii system, where you can sit on the couch and play if you want instead of requiring a rather large clear area right in front of the TV set, just where most people have coffee tables laden with remote controls and magazines...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
MS copied Nintendo Mii's with their avatars. Sony Copied MS with achievements. Sony Copied Nintendo with motion control (poorly). I'm hoping Nintendo copies MS's online play and friend system. As long as they can give us all a better gaming experience without getting their asses sued, I'm in favour of it.
Umm.. what's poor about Sony's motion control system? It's a lot more useful than the original Wii control system..? I'm looking forward to it anyway (and yes I have a Wii, but I got bored of it and started using my PS3 exclusively long before motion plus came along).
which is totally what she said
from Natal. Here's why: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/6/5/
weinersmith
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.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
And Nintendo had motion control with Kibry Tilt and Tumble on the Gameboy Color.
When you are spending 2-3 times as much for your console
Compared to what? I play to own the PS3 for about ten years, playing online games as part of that. You buy the PS3 once and in the end the games are costing a lot more than the console, plus there are no recurring fees and you get a Blu-Ray player too.
If you are comparing to a 360, you are a damn dirty hypocrite since you'll be paying more than me after just a year or two, and if you wanted to watch Blu-Ray discs ever are really running up a tab.
If you own a Wii, carry on (except for the Blu-Ray point of course).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The microsoft version is using Israeli military technology, it's not just a webcam. Or it is a webcam, but it's also something else.
A small time before the camera sends another frame downstream a small led in front of the camera flashes. That flash has a specific color, that's rarely seen in nature. Then it resets one layer of the CMOS camera. Then, a short while later the frame is sent downstream ... with 4 color components.
You have your superstandard red, green and blue channels. And you get a depth channel. The last channel indicates how long a time passed between the flashing of the led and that pixel seeing the color emanated by the led.
In all but the most extreme situations (there are a few extreme angles that don't work as expected, a few materials that are not opaque to the sent-out color, and there's a minimum and maximum distance, which aren't stellar, as well as limitations on how many such camera's can be active at once, as they have to timeshare), that would be the distance between the eye of the camera and whatever object the pixel was on.
Natal does not give you a 2d image, it gives you a 2.5d image (meaning x,y + height, not truly independent x,y,z coordinates), but still. The difference between normal pictures and natal pictures is like the difference between mario bros and duke nukem 3d.
Natal is the combination of a camera + a (relatively short-range) 3d range scanner. That equipment doesn't really exist yet, and while camera's are cheap, I seriously doubt you can find a 2d range scanner running at 60 Hz for less than 50.000$.
You are being too nostalgic. Gimmicky games can be made for any control setup. There were crappy novelty games for the 8-bit generation and before as well.
Advances in technology open up new ways to interact, which can create the opportunity for new types of games and advance current genres. I can't speak for the quality of this particular system, but new ways to interact with video games is a good thing. Your complaint isn't really relevant.