My Indepth Reaction To The Project Natal Video

I think they’re forgetting their major target demographic: fatties.

I can see plenty of uses for visual and voice recognition capabilities. I’m not so sure that Microsoft has though.

I can’t see replacing the controller with pantomime as actually working. Humans use tools. The Wii works because the remote gives you something physical to interact with.

Vargen the Eye Toy had several games where you could do that for PS2. They weren’t bad but it was very basic. However some of this honestly seems impossible. I don’t know how a camera could “scan” a skateboard to any resolution as well as be able to pick out the movements to kick it when its floor level. I’m also wondering how feasible it is to pick up separate voices, or to distinguish the separate motions a person makes responsively enough to make a game out of it.

They would need to have some serious tech to do so, and even then.

That looked awesome, but I have grave doubts that the technology would be anywhere near as good at picking up movements just yet.

Still, as a vision of where games are heading, its a pretty exciting one.

If this was actually going to work even remotely close to that well on an affordable piece of equipment in the next 5 years I would be thrilled. Of course it can’t and won’t since the cameras, processing power, and software to make that all happen would cost a small fortune. It’ll happen someday, but whoever green lit this is smoking crack if they think that video is in anyway an accurate representation of the potential capabilities of even next gen hardware and utterly brain dead if they think it will run on a 360.

Then again I have actually worked with several Microsoft VPs so I can’t say I’m too suprised…

Xbox: Proudly creating the next generation of middle-class twits seeking fun, fun, fun from cradle to grave.

The depression’s on. Why not usher in a new era of buyer’s remorse?

Of course, what I’m more worried about is that they’re looking at the Wii’s success and thinking, “Hmm… you know, Nintendo was really on to something – ditching their core fan base to cater to non-gamers with gimmick gadgets is the way to go.”

I would not say high, more like a hallucinogenic like lsd or shrooms.

lol … the pit crew game mechanics looked very enjoyable! /sarcasm

Seeing this reminded me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-UZv3AS-E .

1)With current technology, no way in hell (Or much, much less acurate).

2)Mainstream =/= dumb. Please, spare us of more commercials of generically cool kids laughing at imapropiate moments. (Was in a guide for making videogames, just with “For the love of what its holy, dont sell your film rights to Uwe Bowl”).

3)0:07 “Product vision; actual features and functionality may vary”.

4)Wii its crap, the damn thing never want to pick up when i grab it.

5)They are high, but just for wanting copy Nintendo.

Actually, I think Microsoft developers in general aren’t high enough. If you’re given the concept of total body control and the best you can come up with a skateboarding game, you lack imagination.

@Vetarnias

The WHOLE commercial was sterile, because it was done for an sterile marketing team only interested in money.

the examples they provide are fine and all, but why dont they try showing the larger gaming a community a not gay game demo? like, i dont know, halo maybe since the fanbois love it so much? or maybe KOTOR? or even guitar hero. id like to know how such innovation will replace button mashing.

soup :I think they’re forgetting their major target demographic: fatties.

I’m not worried. I heard they’re porting Katamari Damacy for us so we can roll around on the floor and collect things as we go.

I would prefer a good computer game over some kind of pseudo-sport workout. I am no fan of the Wii, and this just goes the same route.

@Vetarnias

you hang them around the room like a surround sound system, which is cumbersome

This is the only way I can see it working at all. Even then the current tech is a bit dodgy, and really only works under ideal conditions. Less than ideal conditions like oh say someone wearing a shirt that’s a similar color to their skin or maybe owning a pet that happens to walk by tend to make them freak out.

Also worth considering is what the impact will be on game developers. So you should leave open a bit of coding where anything can be inserted within a game just by scanning it with your Xbox? So you should have graphics for every possible body gesture your average family can come up with, and it should play in real time?

I’m sure there would be a horrible v1 API that is borderline unusable and not actually what MS codes any of its 1st party apps in, like all MS APIs. Even then virtually any features you were to include from a system like this would be totally custom. For character controls you’d either have a predefined set of valid gestures or link the players skeleton to the avatar skeleton (provided it’s roughly a bipedal humanoid). Neither of which is hard from a game perspective, but a massive technical hurdle for the API.

Really this is nothing more than a new control set, just like the Wii-mote was and we’d likely see a similar pattern where 1st party titles are good since the control API is written specifically for them while most 2nd and all 3rd party titles are complete crap for a few software cycles as the official API improves and/or the various teams manage to write their own based on earlier failures.

That’s all speculation mind you, and about a pipe dream of a system that won’t exist anytime soon so it’s doubly worthless

Another useless, gimmicky peripheral debuts at E3? I’m truly shocked!

Makaze :
@Vetarnias

you hang them around the room like a surround sound system, which is cumbersome

This is the only way I can see it working at all. Even then the current tech is a bit dodgy, and really only works under ideal conditions. Less than ideal conditions like oh say someone wearing a shirt that’s a similar color to their skin or maybe owning a pet that happens to walk by tend to make them freak out.

Also worth considering is what the impact will be on game developers. So you should leave open a bit of coding where anything can be inserted within a game just by scanning it with your Xbox? So you should have graphics for every possible body gesture your average family can come up with, and it should play in real time?

I’m sure there would be a horrible v1 API that is borderline unusable and not actually what MS codes any of its 1st party apps in, like all MS APIs. Even then virtually any features you were to include from a system like this would be totally custom. For character controls you’d either have a predefined set of valid gestures or link the players skeleton to the avatar skeleton (provided it’s roughly a bipedal humanoid). Neither of which is hard from a game perspective, but a massive technical hurdle for the API.
Really this is nothing more than a new control set, just like the Wii-mote was and we’d likely see a similar pattern where 1st party titles are good since the control API is written specifically for them while most 2nd and all 3rd party titles are complete crap for a few software cycles as the official API improves and/or the various teams manage to write their own based on earlier failures.
That’s all speculation mind you, and about a pipe dream of a system that won’t exist anytime soon so it’s doubly worthless

It also makes me wonder what sort of living room you need to have to play all this correctly. I don’t live in a soulless suburban mini-mansion; I live in a decrepit apartment with little space, and my living room is oblong with the length of the room cut in half by the entrance door on one side and a corridor on the other, not to mention the balcony door at one end of the room. To give you an idea, in the video, the distance between the couch and the shelves under the TV is probably wider than my living room; now imagine having furniture against both walls, and a coffee table in the middle. Oh, and did I mention it is the largest room? Now, try playing the way they do in the middle of that.

I think the video is just some promotional BS and that 90% of the stuff in there couldn’t be accomplished for the mass market within my lifetime. But really, motion capture? I’d still have to make do with the furniture and the lack of space, but I guess I wouldn’t be part of the target demographic — the vacuous entertainment-till-you-drop crowd that still has money to burn (or thinks it has). Chalk it up to my working-class frugality.

Ah. In 15-20 years we’ll look back on ads for this wacky product with nostalgia. Or at least with much glee.

It does say it’s a product vision, and a very cheesy one at that, but when you see people doing things like
http://www.etre.com/blog/2008/05/cam-trax_bringing_gesture_recognition_to_your_webcam/
and
http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~keskinc/
and
http://symmetri.blogsome.com/2008/06/20/simple-gesture-recognition-2/

already for free with webcams, it kind of takes the edge off my cynicism a little bit.

I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous than that guy changing the tyres on the car. Who on earth is going to sit next to you for hours on end – primed with adrenaline pumping in anticipation of his moment to shine, no doubt – until you get to the one point in the game where you need to make a pit stop?

“Go into the pits, your tyres are blown!” Yeah, you kind of have a vested interest in that happening buddy, I’m not sure how trustworthy your advice is.

@Vetarnias

While I agree the bland, generic, even sickening, completely devoid of any personality family used to portray the ad has all sorts of things wrong with it, I couldn’t let the jabs at entertainment go unanswered.

What exactly is wrong with wanting entertainment? What is wrong with seeking “fun, fun, fun from cradle to grave”? When your life is over and you’re about to die, you aren’t going to say “gee, I wish I had less fun and worked harder and longer hours – that would really have made my boss happy!” Life is here to be enjoyed, the fact that you can’t enjoy yours doesn’t make other people stupid for wanting to enjoy theirs.

I just ran into a friend that works for Xbox marketing and mentioned that I’d seen this dumb video and how ludicrous it looked. He claimed that the whole thing is real and that he’s used the controller and it really works. Kinda boggles my mind. I still don’t really believe him.

“What is wrong with seeking “fun, fun, fun from cradle to grave”?”

Nothing. But along the way, people turn into these sacks of meat and bones who work their asses off and then have mindless driveling fun in front of the bland entertainment du jour. The same mindset that makes people rush to buy a iPhone or the next crap Apple releases with a “i” in front, or flocking to buy the latest Twilight or see the latest edition of Idols or what have you.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everything must be intellectual requiring a college degree to access, but nowadays the “fun, fun, fun” mindset turns anything deep into something shallow for easy consumption trying to reach the maximum number of people using the lowest common denominator.

By all means enjoy your big mac and coke, your kate perry, your dan brown. I know I do and i really do, not being sarcastic here. But please, for once try anything different, a movie with subtitles, a book about an historical figure, a game about a blob, i don’t know… SWomething different, contrary to the usual definitions of “fun.” People would be surprised how much fun they can have without explosions or sickly sweet romance.

In other words, grow a pair and move away from the flock once in a while. You won’t regret it.

And yes, I am a pompous ass (thus invalidating all your rebuttals).

sidereal :
Actually, I think Microsoft developers in general aren’t high enough. If you’re given the concept of total body control and the best you can come up with a skateboarding game, you lack imagination.

This is true.

Also, I will repeat what I said on MMORPG.com
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/238314/page/1

Full body motion capture does have potential for lots of applications but we humans are very peculiar in that we require tactile feedback (along with visual and audio).

Gaming often requires fine motor skills (in the demo video most of the applications were capturing large body motions).

It would be great combined with another controller as well though (for the fine motion capture).

Lots of potential though.

The voice recognition has the greatest potential for gaming.

FWIW I do believe the system works – I have seen some other control techs in development that track hand movement, eye movement, facial expression etc.

But, as pointed out, they can be spoofed either deliberately or accidentally.
Nothing would annoy gamers more than a controller which failed to interpret their movements correctly (at critical times) on a semi frequent basis. (That’s why I don’t own a Wii – and that controller was very good, just not good enough)