To be fair, I have actually heard of Java FX, but as with Java I've just never come across it in use. Similarly I understand Java has come along leaps and bounds in terms of performance and I've seen some great Java desktop apps, but on the applet front I've still yet to see anything that shows it off as a viable platform. Of course, that's not to say it isn't just that I've not seen it to compare, I have at least seen Silverlight in use in a few places and it does seem to be able to hold it's own against Flash at least.
Perhaps the real issue for Sun then (well, Oracle now) is that they just need to do more on the promotion front? Microsoft spent a fortune pushing Silverlight into some prominent places such as the Olympics etc. maybe Sun/Oracle now need to do the same to demonstrate that Java is a viable RIA platform now?
Well, not in the grand scheme of things it's not, I'd rather see the likes of Silverlight and Flash dissapear altogether. I think however in this context Silverlight might actually be a good thing. Flash has become so widespread because there was really no challenge to it, Java applets never really ever managed to perform as was originally hoped.
On one hand I'm glad to see some competition for Flash rather than it be allowed effectively a monopoly on RIAs but on the other the worry is of course that this'll just mean more RIAs!
I'd personally rather see the advances in Javascript allow us to move forward for RIAs because no plugin is required, and it's not some compiled proprietary lump of bits. Google's chrome demos mentioned here a couple of months ago looked very promising in this area so hopefully this will eventually the path we see taken for RIAs but in the meantime I think Silverlight is possibly a good thing, if not only because even in the worst case it forces Adobe to make Flash a better product.
People only have a finite amount of money. What the music industry has failed to grasp is that it no longer has a near monopoly on entertainment that it shared with the likes of the movie industry for the decades before the internet. It now has to compete with a bigger set of movies than ever before, it has to compete with the games industry and really for teenagers it even has to compete with things like text message costs and so on.
The music industry isn't in competition with piracy, it's in competition with every other form of entertainment expenditure out there. The only way to win that battle is how you would win a single industry battle - provide the most attractive product.
When people can buy their computer games, say, Rock Band, and get their music as part of that, they'll be less inclined to buy the music alone.
The same goes for those developers complaining about people pirating their games but if people can only afford one game, they'll buy the best game, that doesn't stop them wanting to play the other game though, they simply don't have money for both, so they'll buy the better one and pirate the not so good one.
It's simple business competition through and through - again, make a good product and you'll get your fair share of sales from people who think your product is the one worth paying for. Try and sell people crap, or try and sell people the same thing multiple times in multiple formats and don't be suprised when it's not your product they choose to spend their money on.
I'm sure some people will try to argue it's immoral that people do this and that's a fair enough argument, but arguing the morality of it doesn't change the reality of it and anyone with any business sense would realise that and make sure their business factors it in and produces a product good enough to get their share of the finite pool of consumer cash out there.
1) It's probably not, that's why it's not due out for at very least a year, probably 18 months minimum.
2, 3, 4) It uses an infrared projector and monochrome camera, so low light isn't actually an issue. I'm not sure which site I read it at, but the reports coming back from E3 said most the demos were actually done in dark rooms. Regarding subtle movements, the racing movements are much more subtle, they have to be as not every race track is a sharp corner. It's also worth pointing out that even existing camera tecnhology such as cheap logitech webcams can handle subtle movement and that's without anything as precise as Natal and is simply image parsing so there's no reason this would be an issue.
5) Supposedly this is one of it's strong points, it can track multiple people round the room. The paint demo kinda showed it and the promotional video shows it, but it'd be nice to see something more solid here for sure.
6) Well, Microsoft stated at E3 they only sent the dev kits out the day they announced it so of course games aren't around yet. No one can make a full blown game in just a couple of days. That said, Microsoft themselves had at least released some demos such as Ricochet and their modified version of Burnout paradise at least so for a technology so early in it's lifecycle it's clearly not totally devoid of application. Ricochet and Burnout were certainly real time environments and certainly were not controlled.
Most of this information has been widely mentioned and shown already in run of the mill E3 coverage. Certainly there are a lot of questions about it, but those you pose in your post have already been pretty much entirely covered and demonstrated already bar perhaps point 5 which could do with more demos for sure. I'd imagine Microsoft will release more over the coming year and now developers have the devkits (apparently they sent 1000 out) we'll probably start seeing demos of actual games using it in a year or so. Perhaps the most obvious point that arises from your questions though is that Natal is clearly nowhere near release - as I stated in another post, I don't even know if we'll see it fully exploited this console generation. I think it'll be at least 2011 before we see it really doing it's stuff in live games as that gives 2 years for the first round of AAA titles to be built for it.
"Doesn't anyone else see this for what it obviously is: a way for Microsoft to steal market share from Nintendo?"
Oh my, god forbid two companies fight over marketshare, how could they!
Apple be damned for trying to take marketshare from Microsoft, damn you GM for trying to take marketshare from Ford and curse you Dyson for stealing marketshare from Hoover, bad companies, bad companies! How dare you!
Why didn't anyone notice this before, why did no one realise that companies compete with each other. This fascinating and insightful revelation has painted the world in a whole new light for me.
The same could be said for the Wii but plenty are happy to jump around, although I agree, it's not my cup of tea. If I want exercise I go for a run, walk the dogs, do some gardening, that sort of thing.
When I came I just want to sit back and relax, but as has been said I believe Natal can be used in this manner you just wont get the full benefit out of what it can provide. That doesn't mean it can't add more depth to classic controller based games though such as maybe the odd hand signal to give your squad orders or simply using the voice recognition to issue commands on top or even just to exploit headset free voice chat playing online with mates.
I think you assume is geeks have more energy than we really do.
I like slouching in my chair having to do little more than twitch my wrist and fingers like someone in a vegatitive state, none of that flapping your arms around for me, far too much effort in that;)
On a more serious note this is why the Wii never really clicked with me, do I play RPG that doesn't look as pretty and requires me to stand up and swing my arms around after a hard day at work or do I play the game that I can actually sit back, slouch in my chair and relax enjoying the super pretty graphics and equally good storyline?
The Wii is great for a weekend when friends are over, but most the time I game is when I get home from work and just want to relax and I simply can't be arsed to deal with the Wii then.
But similarly, this is why I don't expect touchscreen or gesture based computing to completely overthrow the mouse. Gesture based stuff like Natal would be nice for short computer based tasks like interacting with your DVD player or TV between just sitting back and watching but I don't think you'd want to use it day in day out if you're in say an office based job.
Re:Excited about it but there are still problems
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Why Natal Is a Big Deal
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This is the thing I've wondered about the most.
As I've said in response to a previous article though, I feel even having a game like Gears of War controlled as normal but with the added ability to "physically" duck particles or move to cover would add a whole new level of immersion. Even if I had to walk and look with the controller I still see a lot of scope.
Of course, one solution would be just to provide a cut down controller like the Wii nunchuck. Again another thing I pointed out in a previous thread is that Natal doesn't preclude the use of extra controllers - Guitar Hero can still use Guitars but give you extra points and extra interactivity for rocking like a true rockstar as you play;)
I think the best thing to take away from what Natal can do is that it adds a new dimension to interactivity, a dimension that can be used on it's own, or simply to enhance the experience of existing games. I think really it has to be taken in the context of what it can add to gaming, rather than the idea that it's a whole replacement or whole new way of doing things, but simultaneously that's not to say that it doesn't open doors for whole new styles of control as well.
Despite all that I do not expect us to see much from it this console generation, I do not believe it will be released and then have time to really flourish until the next console generation, i.e. I think it'll be 2 years before we really see Natal come into it's own.
The issue in the UK is that they do pass it on to consumers already but that that extra cash that should be for infrastructure is just pocketed as extra profit instead by either the ISP or BT.
British users are already not as heavy bandwidth users as in other countries that pay less for a faster connection with more bandwidth. As BT have a monopoly they can get away with this as there is no true nationwide competition threat to cause them any harm when they do do this.
BT paid for an infrastructure upgrade already called 21cn but they refused to roll out access to it initially until OFCOM change competition rules to help them maintain their monopoly and further increase profits. As such they clearly have the money in their profits to pay for these upgrades, they just have no motivation to do them, and when they do, they only do so with the promise that they can hold onto their monopoly longer or extort money from ISPs by refusing to allow them access if they don't pay up meaning as soon as one ISP crumbles they all have to or lose out to the one that did crumble.
I don't think anyone misses your point that someone has to pay for it. The problem is that we are paying for it and BT still aren't investing.
The issue is that countries like Japan, South Korea, Sweden have much heavier internet users due to IPTV, VOIP and that sort of thing being more common place couple with piracy being even more prolific over there and yet still manage to provide faster connections at a lower price and hence a lower profit margin.
BT has the money to do this but due to having an effective monopoly still in the UK albeit not as strongly as they used to they can get away with not bothering to upgrade as they're still guaranteed a massive set of customers that have no choice but to go via them no matter how bad a service they provide because they pocket the money rather than investing in better infrastructure.
With 21cn BT argued that everyone else should have to pay for it but them, it was an infrastructure upgrade but they were refusing to roll out access to it unless they got government subsidy or unless OFCOM changes the rules to help them hold onto their monopoly. BT had already paid for the upgrade but was simply holding the country to ransom over it. The very fact they could afford to do it in the first place but refuse to roll it out is proof enough that they had the money to pay for it and where do you think that money came from? It came from the customers - that is, we've already paid for it, but BT want us all to pay for it a second time over so that they could take the cost of the upgrade as pure profit.
There is no shortage of money to pay for infrastructure in the UK, the amount of customers, the proportionally lower amounts of bandwidth usage compared to many other nations with better, no more subsidised telecomms networks, the higher charge for internet access and bandwidth, the higher costs of line rental than most other companies means that the money is already there for infrastructure upgrades.
The parent to your post was right - this really is about convincing the telco to invest rather than increase profits as far as possible without doing so. What do BT care what the interests of the country are if they can boost their profits by literally billions by not bothering to invest and there being no serious competition to leave them worried? Again, BT do not have a shortage of money to do infrastructure improvements as they've demonstrated every time they've finally been forced into it or similar so the who pays question is not relevant here because we, the customers have again already paid. In a way I can even understand why BT want to hold onto the profits - so they can invest abroad now they're truly global and they can grow as a company, the problem is this doesn't benefit the country and as they do have what is effectively a state granted monopoly as a result of privatisation then they should be forced into factoring in the needs of the country into their calculations that made them into the global business giant they are now.
I believe this will change, competitors are coming around and growing, but they're still no real threat so we're looking at at least 5 - 10 years at minimum. There's still too many legacy issues that allow BT to maintain a stranglehold such as the fact that if you go with a new telco and they go bust (ironically because of BTs monopolist business practices) then you default back to BTs network - not a competitors, but BTs.
Er, in your previous post you said it's not capable of it, now you agree it is.
No need to get defensive, your comments are inconsistent as a result. It is possible to change your mind and agree with someone without getting uptight about it.
No one ever said it shows real gameplay footage, it's just supposed to show what is possible. If it was really gameplay footage we could expect it to come out for Christmas, but we know it's still in testing and a lot further off than that.
Tech demos have never been about showing off real gameplay footage, they're there to show off the technology and what it's potential is.
Providing we accept scripting as the mechanism for story telling and NPC responses then there's no reason it couldn't be gameplay footage, turning a head on a character to make the scene make sense for a technical demo is hardly a big deal. There's no reason they couldn't turn the head back for actual usage and then you could go up to that screen and say those things and do those actions and get the same scripted responses.
No, that's the point Natal can in fact do that because it can track your eyes in relation to the screen - it's not just a single 2D camera, it has the ability to track in 3D space which means it can adjust what is rendered depending on where you on in relation to the screen.
Natal doesn't just record silhouttes like previous offerings such as the XBox Live vision camera and the eye toy, it does full blown 3D tracking which allows for exactly the sort of things in Johnny Lee's demo and as someone else pointed out to you, Johnny Lee is even working at Microsoft on this.
I should add to my other post by the way, that whilst what the video says is true - that to an observer looking at the screen the character would not be looking at them, it ignores the other dimension, that when you have another observer, observing the observer and the character on screen it would not then appear as if the character was looking at the initial observer as it does in their demo. It thus makes sense that they did it this way to give a better impression for the demo that the character is looking at the initial observer even if that wouldn't work for an actual user of the system.
In the context of the demo then, the character is actually quite correct. If they took the advice of your YouTube video then the exact same effect they mention would make it appear as if the character was looking at those of us observing the overall demo and hence would not appear to us watching the demo that he was talking to the girl in front of the demo.
This is the problem with conspiracy theories, they often miss key points and features like, say, context at which point the theory breaks down tragically.
"So you believe that the game features a totally weird perspective that makes no sense when you stand in front of the TV?"
It's not a game, it's a tech demo, it's scripted to look good which from the camera angle they chose to record from such that they can capture the system and the person using it it does actually look good and it works.
"Actor in front of the TV doing motion, everything else is inserted in post production."
Oh including the dynamic water effect which would be pointless anyway because it's more work to make a fiddled version than it is to just use their existing Fable 2 rendering tech with Natal in the first place? Yes I can see that makes a lot of sense.
"I am not even sure why you try to argue that. I never claimed that the technology behind the demo was fake, that might very well be real or at least close to the demo. But the demo video is certainly not authentic and has been tempered with."
But you're trying to claim the whole demo is fake, which is silly really because it's almost certainly more effort to fake it than it is to simply make a scripted scene using Lionhead's existing tech. with Natal to make a scripted character respond to certain prompts.
You're using a conspiracy theory that simply makes no sense because it's just as much work to go through with your conspiracy theory than it is to just do it for real in the first place. Why exactly do you think they'd even need to fake it? When you step back and look at what they've done it's entirely unremarkable in the context of the new technology - which even you are saying you accept is real. I can go upto characters and interact with them just like that in Fable 2 and many other games using classic controllers and menu choices instead, all that they've changed is the input device and made a scripted scene to go with the technology for the demo.
It's not a real game that they're planning to release, it doesn't matter if it doesn't look right to the person using it as long as it looks good for the cameras and again as there's absolutely no logical reason why they'd need to fake it because all the technology is real and most the resources (like the scenery etc.) appear to be straight out of Fable II then why would they?
No, realism is improved because you can directly interact with things rather than having to be forced to go through an external device that bears no resemblance to how you interact in real life. You do not have a weird shaped device with buttons in your hand (well, maybe you do, but I'd hope not) when you go and talk to people, when you fire a gun, when you play football and so on.
Yeah, certainly. Ideally we'd have props for everything - an M16 that actually feels like it's firing for example to shoot at the screen using a natal style system to allow you to duck, take cover, reload etc. The problem is of course how you'd ever go about implementing that without having all sorts of crap cluttered around your house for each and every different game.
Well no, again you're making things up. It doesn't show that the demo was faked, because being faked suggests that the whole thing is essentially a non-interactive video, yet clearly the water situation where her image is shown from the camera and rendered onto the water debunks that.
All that YouTube video does is back up my point that the responses and actions are entirely scripted, but that this doesn't detract from the fact those scripted actions are occuring in response to real input.
You'd have to be an idiot to think Microsoft have produced AI capable of slaughtering the Turing test although this is effectively what the video suggests if you take it at face value. What they have done is allowed you to interact directly with the game using 3D depth perception hardware, voice recognition and gesture recognition.
It's a little misleading of Microsoft to the uninformed who would certainly take from this that Microsoft has produced some strong AI, but certainly to anyone who understands the basics of technology and can properly analyse what they've done with an understanding of the technology and how it's possible it's fairly clear that she is in fact interacting with the demo, even if the responses to her interactions are entirely pre-scripted.
"Lets try something else: Lets just assume for a moment that all Natal can do is arm and leg detection. Now go back and watch all the tech demos and the product vision videos again. Which of those demos would be impossible to produce with just arm and leg detection? Name one and you might have a point."
You mean like the Burnout one where he uses just his foot to accelerate?
You're still making shit up even, I've not suggested ricochet and paint detect fingers, I'm pointing out that they detect wrist movement, ankle movement, neck movement etc. which is far beyond the simple arm/leg movement you seem to have made up in your own head.
I don't even understand why you've made that up for yourself, I mean if they can track arm and leg movement, if they can track facial gestures, which they've shown they can, what makes you think it's so hard for them to detect ankle, wrist or even finger movement?
We're not talking about technology that just records video like the Eyetoy or Logitech cameras (although that technology is part of it) we're talking about two cameras that can perform full depth perception that coupled with the Logitech style tracking of key points can allow Natal to build a full 3D understanding of what it's looking at and can track those keypoints within that world and with 48 key points per person that's quite a detailed image of the world it can provide. I get the impression you think this is just basic video recording and image parsing and don't actually understand what Natal really is because if you did you'd understand that there's no reason they can't track far more than arm and leg movement and have quite aptly demonstrated in a fair few videos that they can track more than this. You can see quite clearly in the on stage demo where he demonstrates logging in on the console via facial recognition that at very least wrist and ankle movement is detected, already demonstrated how false your assertion is that it's just legs and arms, but no doubt you'll pretend you can't see it again and therefore claim it's not really being shown. All this despite the fact in just those few seconds of simple basic video recognition of neck, body, legs, arms, facial recognition have all been demonstrated. It is much easier to perform recognition of fingers in 3D space than it is of facial gestures.
If you could at least explain why you don't think anything other than leg and arm recognition is possible even though it's demonstrated right in front of you it would be one thing, but you're not even doing that, you're just insisting that's the case without any reasoning or logic behind it it seems.
Yes, that's what most fanboys tell themselves too. That it's always the other person. It doesn't matter how much evidence, how many resources the other person can provide to back up their claims, the fanboy doesn't need to do the same, all they have to do is speculate in return because they're right.
Come back with some actual evidence, and you might have a point, until then, all you're doing is speculating, guessing and outright making things up.
I think the US version of the box maybe slightly different then, certainly nothing about using it with Steam here, only that you must initially activate it and certainly nothing about being required to sign up to Games of Windows live, only that it supports it.
Of course, even the basic registration requirement isn't mentioned on many online retailers sites, but that's the retailers fault as much as anything.
I agree with you in that the physical game box/cd is useless and that's largely my point, you can effectively buy a game online with the impression like all other games before it you can just play it standalone, have it delivered to your door, find you have to activate, activate and find you can't then transfer your product, find you also have to sign up to Games for Windows live, Steam and so on and it's not just a simple case of activating.
As I say I have no fundamental problem with being able to buy and use DLC, my problem lies with the fact they're blurring the line between the choice of a physical copy and DLC, they're providing bear minimum information or sometimes none at all as to what this actually means for you as a consumer. I'd actually have preferred it if the physical version wasn't available for these games so that at least then you can't be misled and you know from the start what you're getting - that's why I have no real problem with DLC on consoles etc. because I know what the deal is from the start. I have a much bigger problem with games like DoW2 though which are simply misleading - I have had further issues with DoW2 i.e. Valve refused activation for me at first, and I kept getting server is too busy when trying to update the game, that's something I should not have to deal with when I choose to buy a physical copy but is now being forced on even physical copies.
"Its 48 *points* not joints, which doesn't really tell us much, because you might need multiple points to reconstruct a joint from the data."
Sorry yes to be pedantic you're correct, but of course interest points aren't redundant, you wouldn't have two on the same arm for example, you may have two either side of a joint, or you may simply track the joints themselves so it does tell us a lot, you'd at most need two points to reconstruct a joint but one of those points would overlap with another joint for example so you may have two points on your arm, one on your upper arm and one on your lower arm to track your elbow, but the lower arm one would also work in conjunction with ones on your hand and your upper arm one would work in conjunction with one on your upper body to track your shoulder and so forth. The effect with interest points is exactly the same.
"I have seen all of them and all of them support my claims. You accelerate in Burnout by moving your whole leg forward, not by lifting your foot, not by lifting your finger. None of the demos I have seen requires anything beyond arm & leg detection. If you know one, show me."
See above sources for people who have used it hands on if you want even more evidence, or simply pay more attention to many of the various videos from ricochet to painting to note that hands, feet, wrist movements are all being registered.
"You might want to watch the videos yourself before posting, hint: bottom left corner right at the start:
"Product vision: actual features and functionality may vary""
It's a bit silly to infer things from that to try and make your point, promotional videos always have this because if something is even slightly different, such as a dashboard change not related to Natal itself they are not covered in lawsuit happy USA from false advertising. This is particularly the case when showing pre-release content as they are here, games change all the way up until release and we're probably at very least a year off release of Natal.
"Of course it could work, but it would be awkward. Motion detection needs a split-controller to work properly, otherwise both your hands are locked in place and won't have much freedom to move."
I think you missed the point, there's no reason you need split controllers for what I'm suggesting. My point is that for example, you can have your existing games like Gears of War but use your body to dodge and such on top. The Wii cannot provide anything like Gears of War and other high end shooters as is, so if Microsoft is taking a step even further ahead that's a plus for them. There is concern that because Microsoft and Sony jumped on the bandwagon too late that no one will develop for their new kit, but in the worst case Microsoft's tech can be used to enhance even classic games meaning in the absolute worst case you'll get a raft of titles that are enhanced by Natal.
"It lived up to my expectations perfectly well, because I based my expectations on its technical capabilities, not on what fanboys hoped it could do (i.e. my expectations where very low to begin with)."
There's a difference between what's hoped it could do and what it could actually do. Even Wii sports, it's original headline title fails to respond to the Wii mote correctly sometimes.
"With MotionPlus I can apply slice to a tennis or golf ball, Natal doesn't have any way to do that."
Apart from recognising exactly those motions as we've been through over and over here?
Still, you can't see the evidence when it's right in front of yo
"Wrist detection, exact detection of button presses, pointing and so on. Basically everything that matters. To take a step back: The way humans consciously interact with the world is for most part just with their hands, while your arms and legs and rest of the body follow more or less automatically, you simply don't think much about them when you move around. What Natal does is putting a heavy emphasis on detecting your arms and legs, i.e. all those things that work automatically, while ignoring the hands that you driving consciously. Its nice that Natal can detect the position of my elbow, but its ultimately not all that useful for gaming. Exact hand and finger movement would be much more interesting."
Hmm, I'm not really sure what else to say about this as it's simply wrong. It's been pointed out quite clearly that Natal and work all the way down to hands and fingers, I'm not sure what more can be said. It can work with again 48 key joints - that's your knees, your ankles, your elbows, your shoulders, your neck, your waist, your fingers, your wrists etc. covered - all main joints, well beyond just arms and legs.
"Yeah, but with your whole arm. How is that better then a minimal movement of the wrist with a Wiimote? Especially considering that you don't have a button to click on things."
This is really just a carry on from the last comment, it can track much more than just your whole arm and so again this is simply wrong.
"Very true, but thats my whole criticism of Natal. Microsoft has shown exactly none of that. Microsoft hasn't shown a complete gameplay solution, but a just techdemo that on its own just isn't all that useful. And on top of that they continually praised that you don't need a controller for Natal, so it doesn't sound like they have additional peripherals planed at this point."
I'm guessing you only saw a few tech demos? You should check out the other E3 demos for Natal which will provide you examples countering all points so far in your post from a working tech demo of driving in Burnout paradise, to a tech demo of Tony Hawks skateboarding through to gameshow style games. It's all in there.
"It very likely couldn't. Look at the video where they form the silhouette of a en elephant, notice how rough the detection of the silhouette is, you are not being able to detect slight finger movements out of that mess."
There are certainly issues that remain unresolved, certainly at a fair distance it will struggle with finger tracking and that'll probably be it's biggest disadvantage if any, that it will struggle at distance, but even then the Wii mote with it's sensor bar doesn't work well at distance. I'm not sure how well Sony's offering does when it comes to distance though, hopefully much better as that's certainly an area where there's room for distinction from Microsoft and Nintendo.
"There is no disbelieve. I fully believe that it can do everything Microsoft has shown. My issue is that what they have shown is by far not enough for decent gameplay."
Again, have you seen the actual promotional demos showing it in use in actual games rather than just the tech demos? Have a look here:
In this video, the fighting sample near the start for example, again there's little reason the ducking and kicking couldn't work alongside a classic controller based FPS for example. You could still easily use a controller to play and shoot whilst using your body to duck, dodge, hide with amazing precision and that sort of thing. That'd certainly lead to far more immersive gameplay than anything on offer currently.
But aside from that whilst we can't look at Sony's offering, we can compare to the Wii and in reality the Wii has really failed to live up to it's hype in terms of what was promised. Wii motion plus might change this, but the limitations of the Wii mote became staggeringly clear quite early on. I do not believe Natal will work 100% perfectly, but I
Again, the important thing to realise with Natal is that it doesn't exclude the use of additional peripherals, but it does open up new doors on top of that. I think you're making the mistake of many others in thinking that Natal is just a camera, it's not, it's a system capable of full blown motion tracking in 3D space which means you can in fact just point at things.
Effectively you can still produce peripherals like light guns, but they needn't contain any electronics and can just be plastic shells, and hence much cheaper to produce. Take guitar hero as an example, Natal could effectively track you playing the guitar by being able to observe which buttons your fingers were touching so you could effectively have guitar hero with a £5 plastic guitar rather than a £40 electronic one.
It's effectively what was shown in the positional tracking Wii hack video but on a grander scale in that it can track more than just a sensor bar - it can track things equally as simple or it can track something more complex such as the 48 joints in the human body, including fingers, or recognise facial gestures.
I'm not sure why there's so much disbelief over what it can do, it's all tech that's been around before from Johnny Lee's head tracking demo to cheap logitech webcam facial tracking to the fact mocap hardware and techniques have just made the technology that much cheaper. Microsoft's just bundled it all together in a way applicable to gaming.
I think regarding the patent lawsuit that probably was the real reason. Microsoft had the same issue but simply paid for a patent license so, so I think there is some truth in what Sony said that they as a company didn't feel any kind of feedback was important - but not simply that it wasn't important, just that they didn't feel it was important enough to pay the license for it I guess.
You're right about forcefeedback too, it really is just rumble as you say. I still actually have my old force feedback stick for my PC here, it's just a shame force feedback only seemed to come along around the time flight sims, one of the few games they were good for, started dying off and becoming much less common.
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To be fair, I have actually heard of Java FX, but as with Java I've just never come across it in use. Similarly I understand Java has come along leaps and bounds in terms of performance and I've seen some great Java desktop apps, but on the applet front I've still yet to see anything that shows it off as a viable platform. Of course, that's not to say it isn't just that I've not seen it to compare, I have at least seen Silverlight in use in a few places and it does seem to be able to hold it's own against Flash at least.
Perhaps the real issue for Sun then (well, Oracle now) is that they just need to do more on the promotion front? Microsoft spent a fortune pushing Silverlight into some prominent places such as the Olympics etc. maybe Sun/Oracle now need to do the same to demonstrate that Java is a viable RIA platform now?
Well, not in the grand scheme of things it's not, I'd rather see the likes of Silverlight and Flash dissapear altogether. I think however in this context Silverlight might actually be a good thing. Flash has become so widespread because there was really no challenge to it, Java applets never really ever managed to perform as was originally hoped.
On one hand I'm glad to see some competition for Flash rather than it be allowed effectively a monopoly on RIAs but on the other the worry is of course that this'll just mean more RIAs!
I'd personally rather see the advances in Javascript allow us to move forward for RIAs because no plugin is required, and it's not some compiled proprietary lump of bits. Google's chrome demos mentioned here a couple of months ago looked very promising in this area so hopefully this will eventually the path we see taken for RIAs but in the meantime I think Silverlight is possibly a good thing, if not only because even in the worst case it forces Adobe to make Flash a better product.
I've said this for a while.
People only have a finite amount of money. What the music industry has failed to grasp is that it no longer has a near monopoly on entertainment that it shared with the likes of the movie industry for the decades before the internet. It now has to compete with a bigger set of movies than ever before, it has to compete with the games industry and really for teenagers it even has to compete with things like text message costs and so on.
The music industry isn't in competition with piracy, it's in competition with every other form of entertainment expenditure out there. The only way to win that battle is how you would win a single industry battle - provide the most attractive product.
When people can buy their computer games, say, Rock Band, and get their music as part of that, they'll be less inclined to buy the music alone.
The same goes for those developers complaining about people pirating their games but if people can only afford one game, they'll buy the best game, that doesn't stop them wanting to play the other game though, they simply don't have money for both, so they'll buy the better one and pirate the not so good one.
It's simple business competition through and through - again, make a good product and you'll get your fair share of sales from people who think your product is the one worth paying for. Try and sell people crap, or try and sell people the same thing multiple times in multiple formats and don't be suprised when it's not your product they choose to spend their money on.
I'm sure some people will try to argue it's immoral that people do this and that's a fair enough argument, but arguing the morality of it doesn't change the reality of it and anyone with any business sense would realise that and make sure their business factors it in and produces a product good enough to get their share of the finite pool of consumer cash out there.
1) It's probably not, that's why it's not due out for at very least a year, probably 18 months minimum.
2, 3, 4) It uses an infrared projector and monochrome camera, so low light isn't actually an issue. I'm not sure which site I read it at, but the reports coming back from E3 said most the demos were actually done in dark rooms. Regarding subtle movements, the racing movements are much more subtle, they have to be as not every race track is a sharp corner. It's also worth pointing out that even existing camera tecnhology such as cheap logitech webcams can handle subtle movement and that's without anything as precise as Natal and is simply image parsing so there's no reason this would be an issue.
5) Supposedly this is one of it's strong points, it can track multiple people round the room. The paint demo kinda showed it and the promotional video shows it, but it'd be nice to see something more solid here for sure.
6) Well, Microsoft stated at E3 they only sent the dev kits out the day they announced it so of course games aren't around yet. No one can make a full blown game in just a couple of days. That said, Microsoft themselves had at least released some demos such as Ricochet and their modified version of Burnout paradise at least so for a technology so early in it's lifecycle it's clearly not totally devoid of application. Ricochet and Burnout were certainly real time environments and certainly were not controlled.
Most of this information has been widely mentioned and shown already in run of the mill E3 coverage. Certainly there are a lot of questions about it, but those you pose in your post have already been pretty much entirely covered and demonstrated already bar perhaps point 5 which could do with more demos for sure. I'd imagine Microsoft will release more over the coming year and now developers have the devkits (apparently they sent 1000 out) we'll probably start seeing demos of actual games using it in a year or so. Perhaps the most obvious point that arises from your questions though is that Natal is clearly nowhere near release - as I stated in another post, I don't even know if we'll see it fully exploited this console generation. I think it'll be at least 2011 before we see it really doing it's stuff in live games as that gives 2 years for the first round of AAA titles to be built for it.
"Doesn't anyone else see this for what it obviously is: a way for Microsoft to steal market share from Nintendo?"
Oh my, god forbid two companies fight over marketshare, how could they!
Apple be damned for trying to take marketshare from Microsoft, damn you GM for trying to take marketshare from Ford and curse you Dyson for stealing marketshare from Hoover, bad companies, bad companies! How dare you!
Why didn't anyone notice this before, why did no one realise that companies compete with each other. This fascinating and insightful revelation has painted the world in a whole new light for me.
The same could be said for the Wii but plenty are happy to jump around, although I agree, it's not my cup of tea. If I want exercise I go for a run, walk the dogs, do some gardening, that sort of thing.
When I came I just want to sit back and relax, but as has been said I believe Natal can be used in this manner you just wont get the full benefit out of what it can provide. That doesn't mean it can't add more depth to classic controller based games though such as maybe the odd hand signal to give your squad orders or simply using the voice recognition to issue commands on top or even just to exploit headset free voice chat playing online with mates.
I think you assume is geeks have more energy than we really do.
I like slouching in my chair having to do little more than twitch my wrist and fingers like someone in a vegatitive state, none of that flapping your arms around for me, far too much effort in that ;)
On a more serious note this is why the Wii never really clicked with me, do I play RPG that doesn't look as pretty and requires me to stand up and swing my arms around after a hard day at work or do I play the game that I can actually sit back, slouch in my chair and relax enjoying the super pretty graphics and equally good storyline?
The Wii is great for a weekend when friends are over, but most the time I game is when I get home from work and just want to relax and I simply can't be arsed to deal with the Wii then.
But similarly, this is why I don't expect touchscreen or gesture based computing to completely overthrow the mouse. Gesture based stuff like Natal would be nice for short computer based tasks like interacting with your DVD player or TV between just sitting back and watching but I don't think you'd want to use it day in day out if you're in say an office based job.
This is the thing I've wondered about the most.
As I've said in response to a previous article though, I feel even having a game like Gears of War controlled as normal but with the added ability to "physically" duck particles or move to cover would add a whole new level of immersion. Even if I had to walk and look with the controller I still see a lot of scope.
Of course, one solution would be just to provide a cut down controller like the Wii nunchuck. Again another thing I pointed out in a previous thread is that Natal doesn't preclude the use of extra controllers - Guitar Hero can still use Guitars but give you extra points and extra interactivity for rocking like a true rockstar as you play ;)
I think the best thing to take away from what Natal can do is that it adds a new dimension to interactivity, a dimension that can be used on it's own, or simply to enhance the experience of existing games. I think really it has to be taken in the context of what it can add to gaming, rather than the idea that it's a whole replacement or whole new way of doing things, but simultaneously that's not to say that it doesn't open doors for whole new styles of control as well.
Despite all that I do not expect us to see much from it this console generation, I do not believe it will be released and then have time to really flourish until the next console generation, i.e. I think it'll be 2 years before we really see Natal come into it's own.
The issue in the UK is that they do pass it on to consumers already but that that extra cash that should be for infrastructure is just pocketed as extra profit instead by either the ISP or BT.
British users are already not as heavy bandwidth users as in other countries that pay less for a faster connection with more bandwidth. As BT have a monopoly they can get away with this as there is no true nationwide competition threat to cause them any harm when they do do this.
BT paid for an infrastructure upgrade already called 21cn but they refused to roll out access to it initially until OFCOM change competition rules to help them maintain their monopoly and further increase profits. As such they clearly have the money in their profits to pay for these upgrades, they just have no motivation to do them, and when they do, they only do so with the promise that they can hold onto their monopoly longer or extort money from ISPs by refusing to allow them access if they don't pay up meaning as soon as one ISP crumbles they all have to or lose out to the one that did crumble.
I don't think anyone misses your point that someone has to pay for it. The problem is that we are paying for it and BT still aren't investing.
The issue is that countries like Japan, South Korea, Sweden have much heavier internet users due to IPTV, VOIP and that sort of thing being more common place couple with piracy being even more prolific over there and yet still manage to provide faster connections at a lower price and hence a lower profit margin.
BT has the money to do this but due to having an effective monopoly still in the UK albeit not as strongly as they used to they can get away with not bothering to upgrade as they're still guaranteed a massive set of customers that have no choice but to go via them no matter how bad a service they provide because they pocket the money rather than investing in better infrastructure.
With 21cn BT argued that everyone else should have to pay for it but them, it was an infrastructure upgrade but they were refusing to roll out access to it unless they got government subsidy or unless OFCOM changes the rules to help them hold onto their monopoly. BT had already paid for the upgrade but was simply holding the country to ransom over it. The very fact they could afford to do it in the first place but refuse to roll it out is proof enough that they had the money to pay for it and where do you think that money came from? It came from the customers - that is, we've already paid for it, but BT want us all to pay for it a second time over so that they could take the cost of the upgrade as pure profit.
There is no shortage of money to pay for infrastructure in the UK, the amount of customers, the proportionally lower amounts of bandwidth usage compared to many other nations with better, no more subsidised telecomms networks, the higher charge for internet access and bandwidth, the higher costs of line rental than most other companies means that the money is already there for infrastructure upgrades.
The parent to your post was right - this really is about convincing the telco to invest rather than increase profits as far as possible without doing so. What do BT care what the interests of the country are if they can boost their profits by literally billions by not bothering to invest and there being no serious competition to leave them worried? Again, BT do not have a shortage of money to do infrastructure improvements as they've demonstrated every time they've finally been forced into it or similar so the who pays question is not relevant here because we, the customers have again already paid. In a way I can even understand why BT want to hold onto the profits - so they can invest abroad now they're truly global and they can grow as a company, the problem is this doesn't benefit the country and as they do have what is effectively a state granted monopoly as a result of privatisation then they should be forced into factoring in the needs of the country into their calculations that made them into the global business giant they are now.
I believe this will change, competitors are coming around and growing, but they're still no real threat so we're looking at at least 5 - 10 years at minimum. There's still too many legacy issues that allow BT to maintain a stranglehold such as the fact that if you go with a new telco and they go bust (ironically because of BTs monopolist business practices) then you default back to BTs network - not a competitors, but BTs.
Er, in your previous post you said it's not capable of it, now you agree it is.
No need to get defensive, your comments are inconsistent as a result. It is possible to change your mind and agree with someone without getting uptight about it.
No one ever said it shows real gameplay footage, it's just supposed to show what is possible. If it was really gameplay footage we could expect it to come out for Christmas, but we know it's still in testing and a lot further off than that.
Tech demos have never been about showing off real gameplay footage, they're there to show off the technology and what it's potential is.
Providing we accept scripting as the mechanism for story telling and NPC responses then there's no reason it couldn't be gameplay footage, turning a head on a character to make the scene make sense for a technical demo is hardly a big deal. There's no reason they couldn't turn the head back for actual usage and then you could go up to that screen and say those things and do those actions and get the same scripted responses.
No, that's the point Natal can in fact do that because it can track your eyes in relation to the screen - it's not just a single 2D camera, it has the ability to track in 3D space which means it can adjust what is rendered depending on where you on in relation to the screen.
Natal doesn't just record silhouttes like previous offerings such as the XBox Live vision camera and the eye toy, it does full blown 3D tracking which allows for exactly the sort of things in Johnny Lee's demo and as someone else pointed out to you, Johnny Lee is even working at Microsoft on this.
I should add to my other post by the way, that whilst what the video says is true - that to an observer looking at the screen the character would not be looking at them, it ignores the other dimension, that when you have another observer, observing the observer and the character on screen it would not then appear as if the character was looking at the initial observer as it does in their demo. It thus makes sense that they did it this way to give a better impression for the demo that the character is looking at the initial observer even if that wouldn't work for an actual user of the system.
In the context of the demo then, the character is actually quite correct. If they took the advice of your YouTube video then the exact same effect they mention would make it appear as if the character was looking at those of us observing the overall demo and hence would not appear to us watching the demo that he was talking to the girl in front of the demo.
This is the problem with conspiracy theories, they often miss key points and features like, say, context at which point the theory breaks down tragically.
"So you believe that the game features a totally weird perspective that makes no sense when you stand in front of the TV?"
It's not a game, it's a tech demo, it's scripted to look good which from the camera angle they chose to record from such that they can capture the system and the person using it it does actually look good and it works.
"Actor in front of the TV doing motion, everything else is inserted in post production."
Oh including the dynamic water effect which would be pointless anyway because it's more work to make a fiddled version than it is to just use their existing Fable 2 rendering tech with Natal in the first place? Yes I can see that makes a lot of sense.
"I am not even sure why you try to argue that. I never claimed that the technology behind the demo was fake, that might very well be real or at least close to the demo. But the demo video is certainly not authentic and has been tempered with."
But you're trying to claim the whole demo is fake, which is silly really because it's almost certainly more effort to fake it than it is to simply make a scripted scene using Lionhead's existing tech. with Natal to make a scripted character respond to certain prompts.
You're using a conspiracy theory that simply makes no sense because it's just as much work to go through with your conspiracy theory than it is to just do it for real in the first place. Why exactly do you think they'd even need to fake it? When you step back and look at what they've done it's entirely unremarkable in the context of the new technology - which even you are saying you accept is real. I can go upto characters and interact with them just like that in Fable 2 and many other games using classic controllers and menu choices instead, all that they've changed is the input device and made a scripted scene to go with the technology for the demo.
It's not a real game that they're planning to release, it doesn't matter if it doesn't look right to the person using it as long as it looks good for the cameras and again as there's absolutely no logical reason why they'd need to fake it because all the technology is real and most the resources (like the scenery etc.) appear to be straight out of Fable II then why would they?
No, realism is improved because you can directly interact with things rather than having to be forced to go through an external device that bears no resemblance to how you interact in real life. You do not have a weird shaped device with buttons in your hand (well, maybe you do, but I'd hope not) when you go and talk to people, when you fire a gun, when you play football and so on.
That's quite a big difference.
Yeah, certainly. Ideally we'd have props for everything - an M16 that actually feels like it's firing for example to shoot at the screen using a natal style system to allow you to duck, take cover, reload etc. The problem is of course how you'd ever go about implementing that without having all sorts of crap cluttered around your house for each and every different game.
Well no, again you're making things up. It doesn't show that the demo was faked, because being faked suggests that the whole thing is essentially a non-interactive video, yet clearly the water situation where her image is shown from the camera and rendered onto the water debunks that.
All that YouTube video does is back up my point that the responses and actions are entirely scripted, but that this doesn't detract from the fact those scripted actions are occuring in response to real input.
You'd have to be an idiot to think Microsoft have produced AI capable of slaughtering the Turing test although this is effectively what the video suggests if you take it at face value. What they have done is allowed you to interact directly with the game using 3D depth perception hardware, voice recognition and gesture recognition.
It's a little misleading of Microsoft to the uninformed who would certainly take from this that Microsoft has produced some strong AI, but certainly to anyone who understands the basics of technology and can properly analyse what they've done with an understanding of the technology and how it's possible it's fairly clear that she is in fact interacting with the demo, even if the responses to her interactions are entirely pre-scripted.
"Lets try something else: Lets just assume for a moment that all Natal can do is arm and leg detection. Now go back and watch all the tech demos and the product vision videos again. Which of those demos would be impossible to produce with just arm and leg detection? Name one and you might have a point."
You mean like the Burnout one where he uses just his foot to accelerate?
You're still making shit up even, I've not suggested ricochet and paint detect fingers, I'm pointing out that they detect wrist movement, ankle movement, neck movement etc. which is far beyond the simple arm/leg movement you seem to have made up in your own head.
I don't even understand why you've made that up for yourself, I mean if they can track arm and leg movement, if they can track facial gestures, which they've shown they can, what makes you think it's so hard for them to detect ankle, wrist or even finger movement?
We're not talking about technology that just records video like the Eyetoy or Logitech cameras (although that technology is part of it) we're talking about two cameras that can perform full depth perception that coupled with the Logitech style tracking of key points can allow Natal to build a full 3D understanding of what it's looking at and can track those keypoints within that world and with 48 key points per person that's quite a detailed image of the world it can provide. I get the impression you think this is just basic video recording and image parsing and don't actually understand what Natal really is because if you did you'd understand that there's no reason they can't track far more than arm and leg movement and have quite aptly demonstrated in a fair few videos that they can track more than this. You can see quite clearly in the on stage demo where he demonstrates logging in on the console via facial recognition that at very least wrist and ankle movement is detected, already demonstrated how false your assertion is that it's just legs and arms, but no doubt you'll pretend you can't see it again and therefore claim it's not really being shown. All this despite the fact in just those few seconds of simple basic video recognition of neck, body, legs, arms, facial recognition have all been demonstrated. It is much easier to perform recognition of fingers in 3D space than it is of facial gestures.
If you could at least explain why you don't think anything other than leg and arm recognition is possible even though it's demonstrated right in front of you it would be one thing, but you're not even doing that, you're just insisting that's the case without any reasoning or logic behind it it seems.
Yes, that's what most fanboys tell themselves too. That it's always the other person. It doesn't matter how much evidence, how many resources the other person can provide to back up their claims, the fanboy doesn't need to do the same, all they have to do is speculate in return because they're right.
Come back with some actual evidence, and you might have a point, until then, all you're doing is speculating, guessing and outright making things up.
I think the US version of the box maybe slightly different then, certainly nothing about using it with Steam here, only that you must initially activate it and certainly nothing about being required to sign up to Games of Windows live, only that it supports it.
Of course, even the basic registration requirement isn't mentioned on many online retailers sites, but that's the retailers fault as much as anything.
I agree with you in that the physical game box/cd is useless and that's largely my point, you can effectively buy a game online with the impression like all other games before it you can just play it standalone, have it delivered to your door, find you have to activate, activate and find you can't then transfer your product, find you also have to sign up to Games for Windows live, Steam and so on and it's not just a simple case of activating.
As I say I have no fundamental problem with being able to buy and use DLC, my problem lies with the fact they're blurring the line between the choice of a physical copy and DLC, they're providing bear minimum information or sometimes none at all as to what this actually means for you as a consumer. I'd actually have preferred it if the physical version wasn't available for these games so that at least then you can't be misled and you know from the start what you're getting - that's why I have no real problem with DLC on consoles etc. because I know what the deal is from the start. I have a much bigger problem with games like DoW2 though which are simply misleading - I have had further issues with DoW2 i.e. Valve refused activation for me at first, and I kept getting server is too busy when trying to update the game, that's something I should not have to deal with when I choose to buy a physical copy but is now being forced on even physical copies.
"Where? Source please."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/technologybrierdudleysblog/2009296568_e3_new_info_on_microsofts_nata.html
http://kotaku.com/5279531/microsoft-project-natal-can-support-multiple-players-see-fingers
"Its 48 *points* not joints, which doesn't really tell us much, because you might need multiple points to reconstruct a joint from the data."
Sorry yes to be pedantic you're correct, but of course interest points aren't redundant, you wouldn't have two on the same arm for example, you may have two either side of a joint, or you may simply track the joints themselves so it does tell us a lot, you'd at most need two points to reconstruct a joint but one of those points would overlap with another joint for example so you may have two points on your arm, one on your upper arm and one on your lower arm to track your elbow, but the lower arm one would also work in conjunction with ones on your hand and your upper arm one would work in conjunction with one on your upper body to track your shoulder and so forth. The effect with interest points is exactly the same.
"I have seen all of them and all of them support my claims. You accelerate in Burnout by moving your whole leg forward, not by lifting your foot, not by lifting your finger. None of the demos I have seen requires anything beyond arm & leg detection. If you know one, show me."
See above sources for people who have used it hands on if you want even more evidence, or simply pay more attention to many of the various videos from ricochet to painting to note that hands, feet, wrist movements are all being registered.
"You might want to watch the videos yourself before posting, hint: bottom left corner right at the start:
"Product vision: actual features and functionality may vary""
It's a bit silly to infer things from that to try and make your point, promotional videos always have this because if something is even slightly different, such as a dashboard change not related to Natal itself they are not covered in lawsuit happy USA from false advertising. This is particularly the case when showing pre-release content as they are here, games change all the way up until release and we're probably at very least a year off release of Natal.
"Of course it could work, but it would be awkward. Motion detection needs a split-controller to work properly, otherwise both your hands are locked in place and won't have much freedom to move."
I think you missed the point, there's no reason you need split controllers for what I'm suggesting. My point is that for example, you can have your existing games like Gears of War but use your body to dodge and such on top. The Wii cannot provide anything like Gears of War and other high end shooters as is, so if Microsoft is taking a step even further ahead that's a plus for them. There is concern that because Microsoft and Sony jumped on the bandwagon too late that no one will develop for their new kit, but in the worst case Microsoft's tech can be used to enhance even classic games meaning in the absolute worst case you'll get a raft of titles that are enhanced by Natal.
"It lived up to my expectations perfectly well, because I based my expectations on its technical capabilities, not on what fanboys hoped it could do (i.e. my expectations where very low to begin with)."
There's a difference between what's hoped it could do and what it could actually do. Even Wii sports, it's original headline title fails to respond to the Wii mote correctly sometimes.
"With MotionPlus I can apply slice to a tennis or golf ball, Natal doesn't have any way to do that."
Apart from recognising exactly those motions as we've been through over and over here?
Still, you can't see the evidence when it's right in front of yo
"Wrist detection, exact detection of button presses, pointing and so on. Basically everything that matters. To take a step back: The way humans consciously interact with the world is for most part just with their hands, while your arms and legs and rest of the body follow more or less automatically, you simply don't think much about them when you move around. What Natal does is putting a heavy emphasis on detecting your arms and legs, i.e. all those things that work automatically, while ignoring the hands that you driving consciously. Its nice that Natal can detect the position of my elbow, but its ultimately not all that useful for gaming. Exact hand and finger movement would be much more interesting."
Hmm, I'm not really sure what else to say about this as it's simply wrong. It's been pointed out quite clearly that Natal and work all the way down to hands and fingers, I'm not sure what more can be said. It can work with again 48 key joints - that's your knees, your ankles, your elbows, your shoulders, your neck, your waist, your fingers, your wrists etc. covered - all main joints, well beyond just arms and legs.
"Yeah, but with your whole arm. How is that better then a minimal movement of the wrist with a Wiimote? Especially considering that you don't have a button to click on things."
This is really just a carry on from the last comment, it can track much more than just your whole arm and so again this is simply wrong.
"Very true, but thats my whole criticism of Natal. Microsoft has shown exactly none of that. Microsoft hasn't shown a complete gameplay solution, but a just techdemo that on its own just isn't all that useful. And on top of that they continually praised that you don't need a controller for Natal, so it doesn't sound like they have additional peripherals planed at this point."
I'm guessing you only saw a few tech demos? You should check out the other E3 demos for Natal which will provide you examples countering all points so far in your post from a working tech demo of driving in Burnout paradise, to a tech demo of Tony Hawks skateboarding through to gameshow style games. It's all in there.
"It very likely couldn't. Look at the video where they form the silhouette of a en elephant, notice how rough the detection of the silhouette is, you are not being able to detect slight finger movements out of that mess."
There are certainly issues that remain unresolved, certainly at a fair distance it will struggle with finger tracking and that'll probably be it's biggest disadvantage if any, that it will struggle at distance, but even then the Wii mote with it's sensor bar doesn't work well at distance. I'm not sure how well Sony's offering does when it comes to distance though, hopefully much better as that's certainly an area where there's room for distinction from Microsoft and Nintendo.
"There is no disbelieve. I fully believe that it can do everything Microsoft has shown. My issue is that what they have shown is by far not enough for decent gameplay."
Again, have you seen the actual promotional demos showing it in use in actual games rather than just the tech demos? Have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oACt9R9z37U
In this video, the fighting sample near the start for example, again there's little reason the ducking and kicking couldn't work alongside a classic controller based FPS for example. You could still easily use a controller to play and shoot whilst using your body to duck, dodge, hide with amazing precision and that sort of thing. That'd certainly lead to far more immersive gameplay than anything on offer currently.
But aside from that whilst we can't look at Sony's offering, we can compare to the Wii and in reality the Wii has really failed to live up to it's hype in terms of what was promised. Wii motion plus might change this, but the limitations of the Wii mote became staggeringly clear quite early on. I do not believe Natal will work 100% perfectly, but I
I don't really see what it can't do?
Again, the important thing to realise with Natal is that it doesn't exclude the use of additional peripherals, but it does open up new doors on top of that. I think you're making the mistake of many others in thinking that Natal is just a camera, it's not, it's a system capable of full blown motion tracking in 3D space which means you can in fact just point at things.
Effectively you can still produce peripherals like light guns, but they needn't contain any electronics and can just be plastic shells, and hence much cheaper to produce. Take guitar hero as an example, Natal could effectively track you playing the guitar by being able to observe which buttons your fingers were touching so you could effectively have guitar hero with a £5 plastic guitar rather than a £40 electronic one.
It's effectively what was shown in the positional tracking Wii hack video but on a grander scale in that it can track more than just a sensor bar - it can track things equally as simple or it can track something more complex such as the 48 joints in the human body, including fingers, or recognise facial gestures.
I'm not sure why there's so much disbelief over what it can do, it's all tech that's been around before from Johnny Lee's head tracking demo to cheap logitech webcam facial tracking to the fact mocap hardware and techniques have just made the technology that much cheaper. Microsoft's just bundled it all together in a way applicable to gaming.
I think regarding the patent lawsuit that probably was the real reason. Microsoft had the same issue but simply paid for a patent license so, so I think there is some truth in what Sony said that they as a company didn't feel any kind of feedback was important - but not simply that it wasn't important, just that they didn't feel it was important enough to pay the license for it I guess.
You're right about forcefeedback too, it really is just rumble as you say. I still actually have my old force feedback stick for my PC here, it's just a shame force feedback only seemed to come along around the time flight sims, one of the few games they were good for, started dying off and becoming much less common.