Project NATAL

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RexRacer

RexRacer

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Anyone see this while watching E3?

Here's a link if you didn't catch it. It's pretty much Microsoft's newest badass motion sensing software.

I'm having trouble thinking that it will catch on. I mean, it's amazing and awesome, but it seems like it's gonna jack up the price so much that it will become unaffordable to most of the gaming community.
 
Milo is just freaking scary. Anyway they got owned badly. They went ahead and promptly said these aren't just some random waggle controls and everyone booed em. HAHA everyone loves the Wii! Seriously though too much movement will make this hardly fun. You thought WiiFit made you sweat? We will torture you with this for sure!
 
It's too slow, things move like they would in REAL LIFE. I want my games to entertain me and move quickly so that I can feel action. If I'm just talking to a virtual kid and drawing pictures... it's revolutionary, but I can do that anyday without an Xbox360 to help me. What I can't do is pretend I'm a Fox that flies a starship. Now that's entertaining.

With NATAL imagination gets taken out of the equation....
 
Controller-less gaming is the dumbest thing ever for anyone who's played games since the NES.

I hope this crashes and burns.

The sad thing is their conference was good UNTIL they revealed this. They showed the games people wanted. But then they bring this out, and make those previews they showed seem like a side-attraction, as obviously they are interested not in gaming as it is now, but turning it into something else.

Also, go ahead and try to use an "invisible steering wheel" for about 20 minutes. It's going to be the most uncomfortable thing ever.
 
The only people that could make successful games are in Japan and have perverted minds. Oh yes interaction with your body. Things could get out of hand.
 
The only people that could make successful games are in Japan and have perverted minds. Oh yes interaction with your body. Things could get out of hand.
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Milo - I can think of a very specific market interested in having a little boy for a virtual pet, but I don't think that they're what you would call mainstream - though I promise they would pay any price for it. : p
 
Zeta said:
Milo - I can think of a very specific market interested in having a little boy for a virtual pet, but I don't think that they're what you would call mainstream - though I promise they would pay any price for it. : p
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Pedofiles will indeed be all over this. But I bet you anything it will have its restrictions. But on the other hand I am hoping that Japanese perverted game makers do make some games. I will not further my reasons why except for these words:
18 year old anime girls.
 
One problem I see with this is how game requiring character movement will work. What, will you have to stomp in place for long periods of time?
 
RexRacer said:
It's too slow, things move like they would in REAL LIFE. I want my games to entertain me and move quickly so that I can feel action. If I'm just talking to a virtual kid and drawing pictures... it's revolutionary, but I can do that anyday without an Xbox360 to help me. What I can't do is pretend I'm a Fox that flies a starship. Now that's entertaining.

With NATAL imagination gets taken out of the equation....
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An excellent point. While this motion sensing technology is probably more advanced (although I only say that because it's more recent) than the Wii or SIXAXIS, if they don't use it for anything good, it's pointless. It's why most gamers avoid things like "My Gardening Coach" on the Wii or DS, but at least the DS also has awesome games to supplement those.
 
I also can't imagine this set-up working well for any games more complex than simple gestures. I can't imagine being able to accurately drive a car, walk through an area, or shoot a gun with just vague gestures.

It will go the way of the Sony Eyetoy.
 
A Holo deck? Make it so Number One.
 
They also assume the 360 is in a big, single home living room.

It's typically in cramped bedrooms. And in townhouses, like what I live in, not even the living room is enough room for moving around like that in front of a TV.
 
They should instead encourage what my friend does. Use DDR pads to play games. He managed to do it with Halo 2. It was awesome!
 
Zeta said:
I also can't imagine this set-up working well for any games more complex than simple gestures. I can't imagine being able to accurately drive a car, walk through an area, or shoot a gun with just vague gestures.

It will go the way of the Sony Eyetoy.
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^ That pretty much sums up my initial impressions of NATAL.
I noticed during the live demonstrations that there were some moments where it appeared the software was having trouble interpreting the movements of the players. Causing the onscreen avatar to go "rag doll" for example:

16mc5e.gif
 
:D Even Molyneux realises damn this would make a fine porn game:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3-project-natals-molyneux-and-milo-interview
Eurogamer: How long have you been working on Milo?

Peter Molyneux: There are two answers to that. We started work with the Natal stuff in December, and the first thing we did was go round all the Microsoft people - the handwriting recognition people, the facial recognition people, the motion recognition people. We brought the technology together and put it in there.

So the world you see created here has been in development since December. Before that, we'd been working on this thing called emotional AI since we finished the first Black and White.

Eurogamer: Is this what you used to call Project Dmitri?

Peter Molyneux: Yes.

Eurogamer: I'm trying to understand how much of this comes from Lionhead and how much comes from Microsoft...

Peter Molyneux: A lot of stuff, like the voice recognition stuff, is based on things like Windows 7 technology. We just went round and took all that stuff and fitted it together. The interesting thing is, a lot of that stuff existed without reason - and when you bring it all together with something like this, it kind of works.

Eurogamer: One of my colleagues did want me to ask why you made him a 12 year-old boy, and not a nubile 17 year-old lady acrobat?

Peter Molyneux: If we were making a porn game, I probably would do that. He's not 12, he's about 10, and that's before he's hit puberty. Part of the amazing impact of this is he can remind you of your childhood.

Eurogamer: My colleague pointed out that if it was a 17 year-old acrobat, instead of things like 'Have you done your homework?' you could say, 'Will you take your bra off?'

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, you could do. You could make a great porn game with this stuff, that's absolutely for sure. But I'd love the idea that you've got this character who you are inspiring. It is such a wonderful feeling that to inspire anything, whether it's a dog or a person or a kid. When you see and feel that emotion, it's pretty emotional.
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Trainer-c said:
16mc5e.gif
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That made me lol. If it couldn't work right during a stage show, how will the a normal version for homes possibly work better? (trust me, the one on stage was probably much more sophisticated than anything they'd manufacture for home use)
 
fate said:
That made me lol. If it couldn't work right during a stage show, how will the a normal version for homes possibly work better? (trust me, the one on stage was probably much more sophisticated than anything they'd manufacture for home use)
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Exactly. I doubt the motion menu's would work properly that you would be able to move your avatar around and all if you were sitting. This will be a standing thing mostly and it won't catch on.
 
I'd suspect this'll see a few compatible games, then it'll go the way of the EyeToy and Gamecube microphone. The Wii was able to become more than just a gimmick for two reasons: one, it doesn't always require you to get off the couch, and two, it's actually able to control both new motion-control games and traditional style games, and does a decent enough job at it.

That second one is important, it's hard to impossible to create good controls without having something in the player's hand. One of the best quotes I think to come out of that conference was "Microsoft didn't reinvent the wheel, they eliminated it." Take that another way and you could think of it as instead of improving on the experience, they eliminated a vital tool needed for delivering the experience.

Perhaps the most telling thing about Natal is that both camera controls and voice recognition have been tried before in games (as I pointed out at the beginning of this post), and both have flopped.
 
Trainer-c said:
16mc5e.gif
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I was watching this live while he was just standing there. And this was the result. I couldn't believe that nobody in the crowd laughed or nobody onstage referanced it ("we've still got some bugs to work out") or anything. I was sitting there asking myself if I was the only one seeing this....
 
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