The Inside Story of Microsoft's 'Project Natal'

Lanxon writes "Wired has published a lengthy behind-the-scenes feature documenting the inception, development and technological struggles of Microsoft's Project Natal, now known as Kinect. The feature is the result of conversations the magazine had with a number of key developers and researchers behind the project, and unprecedented access to Microsoft Research in a number of countries, over the course of three years."

Comments

Waste of R&D dollars, if you ask me

[Pojut]

What's the likelihood that they will recoup enough money to have made this worthwhile? Microsoft has put a HUGE amount of money and effort behind development & advertising for Natal/Kinect...but how many people are really going to buy it?

Look at the Playstation Move...a huge amount of promotion and hype leading up to its release, and then barely a peep about it after hitting the streets. The same thing will likely happen with Kinect. If it really does retail for $150 as has been widely reported, then it will pretty much be DOA.

How can they expect to sell what amounts to a novelty for half the cost of the entire console?

Re:Waste of R&D dollars, if you ask me

[Darkness404]

Exactly, just about every single console has tried to do what Kinect is trying to do.

The Dreamcast had the Dreameye

The PS2 had the EyeToy

The PS3 has the PlayStation Eye

Even the 360 has the Xbox Live Vision


All of them failed to change gaming as we know it. Yeah, the EyeToy had a few games that made use of it, yeah, they were fun in a weird way but they were just tech demos.

We've been trying the camera + console combo for a decade and none of them have really changed gaming... at all. Perhaps Kinect will change that, but chances are, its just hype. I mean, has anyone ever -used- Kinect except for a few people? Plus, attempts to "revitalize" a console midway through its lifespan have historically failed, the only "success" would be the expansion pack for the N64 the rest (SegaCD, Sega 32x, etc.) have all spectacularly failed.

Re:Waste of R&D dollars, if you ask me

[AnonymousClown]

Most people forget how much money some of the big companies like Microsoft and IBM put into pure research efforts (i.e. no immediate plan for a ROI)

Forget? Is there anything to really forget? Back in the day, IBM did quite a bit of pure research and now, occasionally you'll see something about them writing "IBM" with atoms or making a computer that's really fast but nothing like the research they did.

BTW, nothing will ever beat AT&T Bell Labs - especially for the pure research they did back when they existed - all that's gone now.

Basically, a guy like William Shockley wouldn't have a chance in this day and age.

You Should Be Criticizing The Shoddy Tech

[RingBus]

Microsoft was caught faking their demos for their Eye Toy style motion controls for the past two E3s.

And first had reports constantly talk of horrible lag between arm movements and response.

You can't play games while sitting down.

You need to have a relatively large area completely clear in whatever room you are using it in.

There are lighting issues that cause the system to have trouble recognizing motion.

There are clothing issues that cause the system to have trouble recognizing motion.

It doesn't recognize fine motions like finger actions.

It only supports two players.

It should be obvious why Microsoft was forced to fake their demos and so far there has been almost zero real world demos outside of carefully controlled showings with people Microsoft is certain are going to hype the product.

Not that any of that really matters. There isn't any game even remotely interesting or fun that Microsoft has show for the system. When Nintendo showed off the Wii they were confident enough to let everyone at the very first E3 where it was shown play it and had games that both gamers and non-gamers really wanted to play.

Most likely the only people who will end up buying this shoddy tech from Microsoft are the same ones who jumped on the dead HD-DVD format.

Re:You Should Be Criticizing The Shoddy Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess...

You also sat around forums writing about how your Xbox 360 never ever died from the RRoD, or scratched your discs, or destroyed your discs, or sounded like a jet engine.

Time and time again when real people who aren't trying to or being paid to hype Microsoft's motion controls all say the same two things:

1. Lag. Lots of lag between when you move your arms and when the system registers those movements

2. Lack of precision. It only recognizes your most basic movements.

Which of course would explain why they had to resort to faking and pre-scripting their E3 showings for the past two years. And why there is so little footage of real people playing games with the system or even out in public.

The system is junk. Nintendo and Sony passed on this crappy motion control system. Should be obvious to everyone why they wanted nothing to do with this shitty tech Microsoft is now trying to hype.

Re:You Should Be Criticizing The Shoddy Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't own an xbox, I never will, I'm not a console guy. I did get to use a Kinect though, a friend had one set up at a party. It was pretty fun, everyone seemed to enjoy it. I did notice some minor lag. The worst was this one game where you ride this cart on rails and have to move to dodge stuff, but for the most part it seemed like when you are actually playing you don't notice the lag. Or you sort of do at first, but then your body movements synch up with it. Overall I was very impressed by how well the system worked, I think it's likely to be very popular.
I also predict:
1) MS is going to get sued constantly because of it, I saw a few near injuries as people flailed and jumped around next to each other.
2) If you live below someone who has one you will probably go crazy
3) Gamers will lose a lot of weight. Seriously, it's a workout

Re:You Should Be Criticizing The Shoddy Tech

[Xest]

I agree, I'm what would I suppose be categorised as a hard core gamer, so personally for me Kinect's launch titles provide nothing compelling enough for me to be interested in buying it either.

Despite that, the GP's comments are complete FUD, the tech itself seems fine. As I mentioned in another post in reply to Pojut's original comment, I'm a little dismayed that they dropped the quality of the camera so that it can no longer handle hand/finger gestures, which would've been great for FPS games being able to issue commands to AI team mates and such, but other than that it still works pretty much as advertised, you don't need to be stood up (well, unless the game requires it of course- i.e. dance games!), it can easily cope with more than 2 players etc.

It does provide a dimension that Move and the Wii can't at least which is where it may shine- because it's controllerless you can use a controller with it, this means that in games like Guitar Hero it'd now be possible to have players actually move around whilst playing the Guitar, or in games like Lips have people sing into the Microphone and dance as well- not my sort of thing really but I can see how it adds potential we don't yet have in gaming. Whether the potential will ever be reached is a different story of course- for me despite being an early adopter of the Wii, I got it on releaese day, that never ever actually reached it's potential either. I found nearly all the games dull and boring. I'm concerned that Kinect will suffer the same fate- no real innovation to really draw the new control scheme into games with deep mature storylines.

As with everything, all we can really do is wait and see I suppose!

Data point of 1

[russryan]

I was in Best Buy last weekend and they were demonstrating the Kinect. My 9 year old daughter, who doesn't like to play console based video games, started playing one of the demos. It was sort of like Breakout, but you kicked or punched the balls instead of using a remote. I had a hard time getting her to leave.