Project NATAL

I saw it on E3. It looks amazing. If it is really as good as it shows, it will revolutionize the way games are played. When the people from Lionhead showed of Milo, I was amazed. I can't wait to see what's next.

PS: There is an E3 Thread.

 

Well, I'll be a tad more detailed on my impressions on Natal:

Okay, so the guy starts saying "I've been asked many times, 'Can you do motion controls?'" and I knew this was going to be the reveal of the new Xbox motion controls that had been rumored. Chrst and I are no supporters of such a move, seeing as it will ruin hardcore gaming with the introduction of casual gamers in mass quantities. So on skype we shouted back and forth "No you can't! NO YOU CAN'T!". He then said "No, we can do better," and I stopped and did a 'wut'.

Cut to the trailer, and my jaw was dropped. Even though the general air was incredibly cheesy, the entire concept blew me away. When it was all said and done though, I resumed my attitude that this was a terrible decision. I knew they did not have anything ready to show so soon, and I knew that chances are the thing isn't nearly that responsive. I mean, it was so very well aligned with the character movement, and with the scanning of the skateboard... such technology shouldn't even be discovered yet. Oh how wrong was I, when they had a guy come out and begin demonstrating it live. Now my jaw can hit the ground and stay there.

They start things right off with Natal recognizing the person and auto-logging him to his profile. Holy ****ing ****, that is amazing. Then he showed movement with his avatar, as it bugged the ****. I laughed and thought, "Hah! See? Doesn't even work right!" He backed out of that and began to navigate the dashboard with a flip of his hand without any delay. Now I was back to being impressed. Then this girl picked up stage to show a game where you hit dodge balls back to destroy a wall. Well, this wasn't a repeat of the avatar, as her character and herself moved in near perfect sync.

Jumping ahead, they then displayed a man painting with Natal. It picked up his general and imperfect motions correctly 100% of the time with no delays (or very minimal). But I had already seen that with the past example, so what this really showed was the voice command. End War was the game that had people talking about the accurate voice commands it held, but that doesn't hold a candle to Natal. "Light Blue", and he got light blue. He didn't speak with over emotion, with fluctuated voice or anything. He spoke "Give me [or something similar] light blue," and he got it. I was getting spooked, there is no way something should be able to do this yet, and yet have no one know about it. However, the real scare was just to come.

Peter Molenblah (hell if I can spell his name off the top of my head) from Lionhead Studios came onstage. He said he was going to be making a big reveal at E3 that was not Fable, and this was it. He was designing the first "game" for Natal, testing it to its complete capabilities. Now, before I go onward, I want to say why this is such good news for someone like me. I hated the concept of motion controls because we all know the Wii story by now. Those fears almost completely washed away when Peter went on stage. Why? Because he is HUGE on innovation and gaming (and for the most part, innovation ruins games), and he makes it work. If anyone would be fully using this innovation it would be Peter and the folks at Lionhead, and I couldn't think of a better company to set the bar than them. Now with that out of the way, onto Milo. Milo is a English AI boy. He recognizes you and calls you buy name thanks to Natal. He can read your emotions, catch things that you toss at him, and most of all engage in a real time conversation. Peter showed how people even went the extra mile to act like they were interacting with Milo because it was so immersible. Then they went fishing, and the lady stood over a pool and looked down. What we saw was the most realistic water reflections I have seen in awhile, with a live streaming cam of the person. She proceeded to interact with the water that behaved based on real physics. Some splashing later though, is when I really impressed. Picking up an ordinary piece of paper, and a pencil, she drew a fish. After drawing said fish, she reached about screen, and lowered the paper into the gaming world as Milo took the paper for himself. Her drawing was now in the game, and Milo was looking at it in his own hands. Wow.

So, what can I say more about Natal? Well, that the only thing to compare to it right now, is the interface in Minority Report.​

 

I trully think this will revolutionize gaming, but I have fears for fps games like halo. I mean, how would it work? How would you walk in the game?

So yes, I do like this concept. But I'm not sure what it will spell out for hardcore gamers like myself.

 

Well, it would be a walk in place type of thing, since simulating a general walking movement isn't that hard with your legs. To pull off FPS, all you do is add a gun like shape (doesn't even need to be a control, a simple water bottle could do) and you're set to go with firing similar to that of the Wii. Who knows? Maybe it will even be able to detect trigger squeezing. In my opinion, what Chrst suggested to me would be far more amazing though. RPG's. We already act out dialogue from selected menus, but what if we can speak it? Act it? Look it in our face and have the NPC know if we are being friendly or just want to kick their ass? To me, this sounds promising.

 

Hmm, maybe you have to set up a bunch of sensors around your playing area, for it to be extremely accurate and have little delay. I'm guessing 8 or 10, one in every angle.

I wonder, if in games where you have to walk, you actually have to walk...but what happens if you run out of space? OH TEH NOEZ! Or you are running and you hit a wall or something, and the guy in game trips, and it will be all weird and disorienting, or some feeling. Maybe Project NATAL has it going both ways. The wind blows in the game, Project NATAL wirelessly turns on a fan or opens ventilation ducts so you feel the wind. And if you fall, Project NATAL pushes you down on the floor. And if you get shot...

 

Doesn't the NATAL camera use infrared sensors?
If so, it would probably explain the damn accurate movements it produces on screen.
Body heat is a pretty clear representation of movement in a say, 20 degree room.
Each body part can be sensed so easily amongst its surroundings, minus any lights and all.

I think this Infrared sensor has got the edge by far, over Nintendo Wii's motion sensor.
EDIT: Wait, I hope I even got that right..?

 

this looks really cool but i dont know how much i would enjoy it for certain games because for some there will just be too many movments required to actually play the game effectivly but other than that i can see it being alot of fun for sport games or more interactive styled games, but some games just need a controler

 

Games like Halo simply wouldnt use the technology. Not every game will use every feature a system offers... especially since it's an add on to xbox 360.

 

Yeah, I suppose that right. And the rpg thing would be awesome... So awesome

 

this NATAL looks pretty damn good.
the racing game demonstration made me wow but the technolgy involved in making this must be costly.
and im not seeing this thing coming out for like 2 years.

 

I've always thought of something in my head and i'm sure a lot of other people have to, pretty cool. I know one thing though, It's going to be very very very expensive.

 

Hopefully it will be able to accurately capture motion. I noticed during the E3 demo that the figure was tweaking out a little bit... hopefully that won't be seen in the commercial version.

Another thing I'm curious about is the price point for this add on. In order for it to be successful and compete with the Wii, it has to be priced somewhat cheap. I'd expect it to cost around $50, so that when packaged with the core 360, would total to $250. That would put it in direct competition with the Wii. If it costs anything more than that, then it will most likely fail in the mass market.

No one wants to pay an additional $100 to play a game. Peripheral add-ons have to be cheap to be successful, otherwise no one will bother to take the plunge for something they could get with a stand alone unit.

MY PREDICTION: NATAL WILL COST $50-70

 

That price sounds about right.

 

Pokemon would work so well with NATAL. Throwing pokeballs, Commanding Pickachu to use Thunderbolt.

Hell maybe even anime -esque Pokemon, where you could command your Pokemon to "hide behind that rock" or "go left".

What games do you think it would be possible to make with NATAL? Or existing games that you could see NATAL improving.

 

i think stealth games would be really fun with this
same with RTS's, imagine just pointing to your units and then moving your finger to the position you want them to move to!

 

sorry to crush your dreams pal but isnt pokemon or Gamefreak owned by nintendo?

 

I don't know, we need to consider how much it will cost Microsoft to manufacture NATAL. NATAL probably costs quite a lot for Microsoft to create. Similar to the 360. Didn't Microsoft in the beginning lose money because of how expensive it was to create the Xbox 360s?

 

lol

Back to the point, Natal looks amazing and I do think it could be applied to a game like Halo in someway or another. For example movements could be done by shifting hips? I don't know. But the shooting could just be some kind of gun that works for all games.