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Checking In On Project Natal
itwbennett writes "A couple of interesting articles followed Robbie Bach's announcement at CES that Project Natal, Microsoft's controller-free Xbox 360 control system, will be shipping in time for the 2010 holiday season, writes blogger Peter Smith. First, Popular Science has a nice look at how Project Natal works, focusing mostly on the software and how 'Microsoft engineers are teaching the Natal 'brain' what various parts of the human body look like so that Natal can tell your ascot from your elbow.' Microsoft is staying mum on the hardware, although Smith notes that we know it involves an infrared camera. 'If you don't care about how the tech works but just want to know if it'll be worth buying,' writes Smith, 'you might be interested in an interview with Robbie Bach in the Financial Post. In the interview Bach claims that 70%-80% of Xbox 360 developers are working on some kind of Natal-enabled gaming software, and he assures us that first-party studios are also hard at work.'"
If I want to use my whole body to play, I'll go outside. Don't take my keyboard/mouse/controller away from me.
Gimmie a break. I'm all for innovative UIs and input, but calling it a brain is a joke and insulting to those who actually work in fields that contribute to AI research. Natal seems really cool, but lets not get out of hand.
Am I the only one who thinks all these motion controllers are a passing fad that we will one day look back on and laugh about? All the console makers seem to be jumping onboard, but it just makes my arms tired.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
They had to develop techniques to counter certain types of misuse...
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
It seems it's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-flight_camera , made with the tech MS acquired from 3DV Systems.
In the form of Natal, certainly cheap. Mighty fun stuff; somebody will finally make, using also this thing, robotic overlords good enough to doom us all.
Assuming there will be free Windows SDK at the least, of course... (or, even better, the protocol will be clear enough to figure out easily into lib usable across platforms)
One that hath name thou can not otter
and many wrote off the GUI in general.
It is how we use the technology that will be important. It might be a fad in games but this has so many other uses and might present a cheaper method for many people to enter into this field (motion control portion not the game portion). This will probably reduce the costs of some groups immensely.
There are still lots of applications today that require hands on manipulation, even waldos, that could benefit from applications of this. Let alone all those stories many us read as kids that can come to life with this technology. Hell, look at Hollywood computer interfaces we all smirked at because they were "wrong". From Blade Runner to Minority Report, I'll take it any step, small or big we can get.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
With word coming out that they removed Natal's processor and it'll now use anywhere from 10% to 33% of the 360's own processing power, just how good will the games be? There's going to be a price in what developers can you do when you chop that much CPU time out of the system compared to a standard game.
I dunno, I like the idea, but it seems like something Microsoft should bundle with their next system and not tack on to the 360.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
No. Some of us have been looking at them and laughing since day one. I would say the gimmick has, to some extent, already been exposed to most: after all, you can only keep claiming to have a brilliant new innovative technology that will revolutionize gaming for so many years before people realize you haven't actually made any innovative new games and nothing has been revolutionized. And all the AAA games are still using the "old" technology. And waggling a control may amuse your grandma for a time, but once the shiny factor has worn off, you're back to wanting actual gameplay. And that dodgy, inaccurate controls hinder rather than help gameplay.
Motion sensing is only going to work when there's feedback---not just vibration, but full motion resistance. We're a long way from having that technology. Additionally, it doesn't really make sense either when you're watching TV and you have a tiny FOV, rather than complete immersion.
Developers have had years to show otherwise. Maybe someone will come up with a magically awesome use of motion sensing, but until it stops getting in the way and actually lives up to the claims of "intuitive" and "revolutionary," it's nothing but a gimmick for marketing. Natal adds nothing.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
After it has learned how to predict our movements, couldn't this be used to kill us with guns? There was a 60 minutes piece on the virtual fence--most interesting part for nerds was the AI system to recognize what to show to people. Apparently rolling sagebrush and various fauna were triggering too many false positives.
Good stuff.
Don't underestimate those numbers. 15 third party games at launch would be astounding.
Just think of Natal combined with three dimensional televisions. Now there is an interface that I can get behind.
This is it.
Slapping motion controls on the junk old Xbox 360 hardware is the only option for Microsoft other than just pulling the plug on the whole mess. Search is Ballmer's new baby and it is looking like it is on track to rack up Xbox style billions in losses.
Giving Robbie Bach the green light to spend the billions it would take to design and manufacture new Xbox hardware is about as likely as Microsoft switching Windows and Office to the GPL. The Xbox 360 was supposed to be the console that E&D finally got right after the first Xbox disaster. All sorts of promises were made that a repeat of the first Xbox marketplace flop and losses wouldn't happen again with the Xbox 360.
New Xbox hardware isn't going to happen. Ever.