Project Natal for Xbox 360

messiah

Check it out, looks amazing!

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

Christopher

halo71

Kinda stepping into the Wii waters ehh?

Demiurge

Stepping far beyond.

kuntasensei

If you want to see just how far beyond they're stepping, check out Popular Science's write-up on the technology behind Natal: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-01/exclusive-inside-microsofts-project-natal

Important thing to keep in mind: You could still have a controller in your hand when you're using this. A lot of people seem to ignore that and say "PS3's solution has buttons!", but several developers have implied that they intend to use the controller and Natal simultaneously.

Also important to remember: Full-body motion tracking is cool... but facial recognition, the ability to read the expression on your face, and voice recognition... that's gonna be the truly interesting part. Imagine a RPG where your face is on your character and your responses directly affect how characters respond to you. It's gonna be interesting to see how Microsoft leverages this tech, especially considering they've hinted that it could also be used on the PC.

Shizelbs

It punches Wii in the nuts.

everpress

Shizelbs wrote: »

It punches Wii in the nuts.

And then sleeps with it's mother...

bevo

It does look awfuly impressive, but just like the wii I think it's a gimmick. I really can't see myself using this for anything at all. I imagine the people that would use this the most, are people who normally do not play video games, just like the wii.

It looks like it will be more work than using a contoller and the bottom line is that us gamers are fairly lazy when it comes to playing our games. Why would you want to play a racing game with natal when you can buy a steering wheel that simulates the effects of G forces and tire grip. There is no way you could aim on shooters with it, or attack people in a fighting game as well as you can sith a contoller.

I really can't think of anything that would make this would be used for, other then demonstrating how cool it is. It isn't going to make navigating screens quicker or easier, it's not going to work well with any games. I really can't think of any use for natal at all.
It seems alot like playstation HOME in that it's a big waist of time and resources inventing this. I'm sure it will make a ton of money, but it will probably be like the wii, and end up setting on top of your tv as a decoration. I personally know at least 15 people who bought a wii, and none of them use it unless people are over and they play bowling on it. That's the same thing natal will be.

I do hope I'm wrong though and game developers figure out a way to make this thing work well with games, because it does look awfully cool. I just can't think of anything about it that will improve the gaming experience.

kuntasensei

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you said, bevo... but I still think a few developers are going to come up with some surprising ways to use it. If they strictly go the Wii route with it and do b.s. minigames, then I have no interest... 'cause I'd rather veg on the couch and play Borderlands after work.

But I am interested to see what they do with voice recognition. Peter Molyneux has hinted at a lot of interesting stuff regarding your voice and detecting your emotion based on your facial expressions that could provide a new and unique gaming experience. Then again, Molyneux is famous for talking up a bunch of features that never make it into the game too... so we'll see. Fable 3 supposedly has Natal support, and if Milo is any indication, he has something special planned.

Hell, I'd just be happy if they can nail mapping my face to my in-game character for multiplayer games. Rainbow Six: Vegas 1&2 had this feature using the regular Live Vision cam (which was really the only use I got out of that thing), and I think Natal would be much easier to do this with since it would be able to auto-align your face on your character based on its pattern detection. If Epic implements Natal face-mapping into their Unreal Engine's API set, you could see that feature pop up in quite a few games.

But more than all of that, I'm interested to see what Microsoft does with it in the PC space. If they implement it the way they have multi-touch in Windows 7, that'd be some cool Minority Report stuff that I would have to have just to tinker with.

bevo

Minority report stuff would be the only thing I could see Natal being any use for. Pc's would be the place for a project like this. Natal would be pretty cool for using to navigate your windows screens, but the 360 just isn't going to benefit from it at all. It's good though that it's microsoft that is making this, because maybe windows will really take advantage of it.