Natal Motion Control/Recognition (360)

[McPhee]

That didn't really answered my question, and do you actually have inside knowledge of it? Not to mention all the usability problems and the price of a ultra hi def cam.

 

I don't know anything of Natal other than the principals of the tech it's based on. There is a catch to it as with everything. These cams have a limited effective operating range. The minimum distance between the player and the cam will have to be something in the range of 1m (though it depends on the camera, you could design one that would work a lot closer than that) and the max could be anywhere between 3 and 5 meters. It's a lot like the Wii pointer in that respect, it won't work if you're too far away.

 

The possibilities are huge for it. The reason why this actually excites me when the Wii doesn't is simply because all the way up until Motion Plus the Wii wasn't really doing anything special (from a technical point of view). It was well thought out, well marketed, but there was a lot of false promise there. Motion Plus righted that, but it's essentially tracking the position of a stick in 3D space. Natal can track that stick, the rest of your body and your pet dog if you want it to, all at the same time. It's also much more flexible, a developer could use the camera along with the control pad to (as an example) create an FPS where you can lean and peer around corners through body movements. They could essentially integrate this in to the next CoD game;

 

[Choze]

There is alot of false promise for this already. Lets wait for actual products.

[Aimless]

As it is, its probably going to be $100...

The Seattle Times seems to think it will "probably cost around $200". Understandable given the tech, but surely Microsoft are just going to have to take a hit on the RRP if they want it to be really successful?

 

Also, this video is pretty funny.

[Choze]

Its just a camera with specialised software. Not going to be expensive to make or they wouldnt have bothered.

 

MS want to tap into the shovelware market of the Wii.

[Aimless]

Two cameras, presumably of suitable fidelity to offer reliable face recognition at a couple of metres. And a microphone with at least decent noise filtering capability; the device sits near your TV. There might be other less obvious inclusions, too. These things add up.

[Choze]

Two cameras, presumably of suitable fidelity to offer reliable face recognition at a couple of metres. And a microphone with at least decent noise filtering capability; the device sits near your TV. There might be other less obvious inclusions, too. These things add up.

 

We are talking about a camera with a mic not a tv. The whole point of accessories like this is that they are cheap.

[Shino]

I don't know anything of Natal other than the principals of the tech it's based on. There is a catch to it as with everything. These cams have a limited effective operating range. The minimum distance between the player and the cam will have to be something in the range of 1m (though it depends on the camera, you could design one that would work a lot closer than that) and the max could be anywhere between 3 and 5 meters. It's a lot like the Wii pointer in that respect, it won't work if you're too far away.

 

The possibilities are huge for it. The reason why this actually excites me when the Wii doesn't is simply because all the way up until Motion Plus the Wii wasn't really doing anything special (from a technical point of view). It was well thought out, well marketed, but there was a lot of false promise there. Motion Plus righted that, but it's essentially tracking the position of a stick in 3D space. Natal can track that stick, the rest of your body and your pet dog if you want it to, all at the same time. It's also much more flexible, a developer could use the camera along with the control pad to (as an example) create an FPS where you can lean and peer around corners through body movements. They could essentially integrate this in to the next CoD game;

 

 

This is easy to see in retrospect, now with our experience learned from the Wii and a deeper notion of what makes 3D motion sensing, I shall apply some doubt to this.

 

Two cameras, presumably of suitable fidelity to offer reliable face recognition at a couple of metres. And a microphone with at least decent noise filtering capability; the device sits near your TV. There might be other less obvious inclusions, too. These things add up.

 

Probably even wireless.

[Tellyn]

I'm not sure if it's capable of making a massive impact in the market, it's perhaps a bit too late. The Wii came with motion control capability out of the box. For this, you need to buy an Xbox 360, Natal (and Xbox Live Gold to get a more complete experience - including patches...). Early estimates put the price at $200, likely to be about the same in Europe due to tax and crappy conversion rates.

 

It's extremely impressive tech though. I loved Shino's first post by the way, it's true...

[Aimless]

We are talking about a camera with a mic not a tv. The whole point of accessories like this is that they are cheap.

No, we're talking about two cameras, a microphone array at least comparable to that of the PSEye, plus a depth sensor and, according to the press release, a "custom processor running proprietary software".

 

I'm not saying that the thing will cost $200 — I clearly attributed that estimate to The Seattle Times — but don't be surprised if the device ends up costing £99 when it launches over here.

[Dante]

Hmmm at Molyneux's Milo game.

[Wesley]

I was expecting shit in terms of Natal but that thing blew me away. Really good stuff. I'd obviously wait for the games to see if I'd buy one. But the tech itself is brilliant.

 

I also liked how they showed the kid skateboarding, just quickly shits on the Tony Hawk plastic skateboard that was shown.

[Shino]

What about the Ubisoft conference? Someone open it up!

[Pantsu Man!]

Indeed, I just wanna say this guy's going on and on and on about stuff I don't care about.

Also the French's accents are really hard to understand.

[Dyson]

The guy talking now is hilarious. I'm not kidding when I say he's been talking for 10 minutes about his new film and experiences.

[dan-likes-trees]

Im quite hopeful about how the whole thing will pan out... although it seems like such a huge leap from current tech (eyetoy and suchlike) that I'm not ready to believe they'll pull it off...

 

Like someone said, lack of movement, walking, running, in games is an obvious problem, possibly rectified by just having like a nunchuck for one hand? Though that would kind of defeat the point..

 

And development costs for these games would be ridiculous. And I could see Milo just turning into a good version of those crappy chatbot things you get on t'internet... like many have said, it seemed very staged - maybe the tech worked but milo was programmed to be able to respond to the things the actress was going to say and do nicely.

[Pit-Jr]

Im only just now catching up with all this MS news. Natal looks phenomenal but i have to admit to myself that its not for me, although i can see where alot of people will love it.

 

The voice recognition commands and finger pointing/waving menu navigation stuff looks excellent and these are things id actually use but once the actual game starts, i want my thumbs doing the bulk of the work, the way they always have. If the Wii has taught me anything, its that i prefer being a lazy slob when im playing videogames.

[Goafer]

fingers wouldn't really be needed unless someone makes Piano Hero *

 

 

*someone should totally fucking make that.

 

Someone did

 

Twice

 

And indeed, thrice

[Daft]

It's great and all, but when it comes down to it, it isn't standard with the console so I don't see it having too big an effect.

 

I do think that when motion controls are introduced into proper games as a standard it will be via camera and around a controller, as opposed to without one.

 

Not having tactile feed back sucks.

[Pestneb]

do you guys remember that revolution video fake? cos if you do.. it pretty much sounds like natal.. it seems to me that microsoft saw that vid, and decided to try and go for it.

it has great potential. so did the wii mote though. so we shall see.

[Serebii]

So there's a video out and it says this;

 

"Product Vision: actual features and functionality may vary"

 

Who'd have thought :p

[Aimless]

Oh, the Wii advert concept footage was clearly a load of arse. The driving game being a prime example as it would be the most impractical and agonising way to control a racing game in the world.

 

That said I'm sure all the functionality in the video is perfectly feasible, it's just a question of how reliable the end product would be and whether doing things that way would make sense.

[flameboy]

It's great and all, but when it comes down to it, it isn't standard with the console so I don't see it having too big an effect.

 

I do think that when motion controls are introduced into proper games as a standard it will be via camera and around a controller, as opposed to without one.

 

Not having tactile feed back sucks.

 

Agreed thats they one place eyetoy falls down...I wonder if Sony have anything similar...We have already seen eye pet a much simpler version of Mylo could we see more?

[ThePigMarcher]

If the Wii has taught me anything, its that i prefer being a lazy slob when im playing videogames.

 

That's would be my main concern if this thing actually manages to deliver.

 

I was impressed with what was shown (although I share some of the cynicism regarding Milo) and should it come good there is a hell of a lot of potential, whether Microsoft are a bit too late to the party with it remains to be seen. Although if it goes some way to extending the life of the current gen then it could be a positive step.

 

Despite all the possibilities, quite often I am more than happy to just slum it on the sofa with a controller in hand, and I wouldn't want this thing to become too big (or god forbid, the medium standard in a few years).

 

In some respects this form of input is as limiting as it is progressive, and being forced to be active will become a barrier for some*. At least with the Wii, it is possible in most titles to still play in 'lazy mode' but I really don't see how this would be possible with Natal.

 

It would also be extremely difficult to incorporate dual control methods without one or both being severely compromised and I really don't see developers wanting to be in a rush to develop two versions of games, especially with costs already going through the roof.

 

* A small example of this was something like Tiger Woods on Wii, in the '09 version there wasn't any way to play effectively whilst sitting and after a while it became tiresome. At least with the '07 version it was possible to still use motion controls whilst sitting (slightly less effectively obviously) and despite the compromise with dual methods I ended up wanting to play that more often than '09.

 

Hopefully the technical advances of Natal will be overcome some of this, but it is still a concern.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Just seen this video: http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/5215984/13765950

 

Seems a bit lagging in its response.

[Jamba]

I'm hugely skeptical. Especially since the Wiis release. Nothing ever works as well as they suggest which breaks the whole suspension of disbelief.