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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.
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.
from Natal. Here's why: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/6/5/
weinersmith
Yeah, maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like this idea is about as overhyped as the idea of replacing your keyboard and mouse with a touchscreen.
First, people have to realize that it won't be like sci-fi level virtual reality. You'll still be looking at a TV, so it won't be completely immersive. Just measuring body movement without a controller means no haptics or force feedback. Plus, game designers still aren't good a providing real freedom in games to "do what you want". Hell, even sandbox games usually only allow you a couple of pre-prepared actions in a walled-off world. Grand Theft Auto is nice enough not to have you running into invisible walls around their world, but they instead put you on an island in the middle of an infinite ocean.
So the things people imagine don't quite work out. People imagine a sword fighting game, but forget that you won't feel the other fighter's block. People imagine a game where you can have realistic interactions, where refined and specific movements can make a meaningful difference in what happens in the game, but instead you're limited to a vocabulary of a couple gestures.
Maybe these things are a stepping stone to something more, but I doubt I'll be ditching my controller anytime soon. There are probably also other techniques that are both easier to pull off and more effective at creating immersion. For example, imagine playing a FPS with a high-quality Wii-remote-like device and 3D head tracking.