Posts Tagged ‘Project Natal’
These clips come from the 3DV site, these top secret videos where released today. They show early stage clips from Project Natal.
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Microsoft claims that Project Natal will “revolutionize home entertainment”but according to one analyst Sony’s motion controller is “superior from a gaming perspective.”
Project Natal wowed many a gamer and journalist at E3 with its fluid body-based controls courtesy of a 3D motion sensing camera ti detect every shimmy and shake. However not everyone’s as impressed.
speaking to Gamasutra Industry analyst Doug Creutz believes Natal is a solution to a problem that wasn’t there and that Sony’s own motion controller is a better gaming proposition.
“The Project Natal demo from Microsoft got most of the ink, but I really thought Sony’s demo was superior from a gaming perspective,” said Creutz.
“Natal appeared to me to be a technological solution in search of a problem. “Do I really care if I can navigate my Netflix queue without using a controller?
Fair point with Netflix. But what about games?
“I had a very hard time envisioning playing Modern Warfare 3 using Natal. By contrast, I had a very easy time envisioning it (and enjoying it) using Sony’s control/motion capture scheme.
Creutz seemed to admit that while Natal could be a worthy addition to the casual games market existing fans of casual games, who are likely to have a Wii will be non too pleased at having upgrade twice (don’t forget MotionPlus).
“Microsoft appears to be trying to steal casual gamers away from Nintendo, which is a difficult proposition given that you’re essentially asking casual gamers to upgrade twice during the cycle (assuming they already own a Wii).
Creutz suggested that Sony has the better gaming strategy by concentrating on what the company knows rather than attempt to go all-out casual.
“In contrast, Sony is squarely targeting the core gamer market, which is what they need to be doing,”
Strong words. Is Microsoft simply copying the Wii or will it really “revolutionize home entertainment” as Microsoft says?
When Kudo Tsunoda took to the stage on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon earlier this week he and everyone else playing the game were decked out in matching red jump suits, leading some to speculate it was because of tech issues.
Not so, says Microsoft. The red jump suits had nothing to do with Natal’s difficulty in picking up certain types of clothing or to compensate for the studio lighting, it was just a joke.
“Actually, the red jumpsuits were just for laughs,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Kotaku. “The Jimmy Fallon crew wanted something funny for the guests to wear and decided on red jumpsuits and turtlenecks. We just wonder if the red jumpsuits will start a new fashion trend.”
No. No, they won’t.
Well…yes, you get the idea. Here’s Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda demoing, as promised, Project Natal on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
And as you can see, Jimmy Fallon is…well, to say he’s enthusiastic about the whole thing would be selling his enthusiasm short. Wonder how important it is for Microsoft to have the host of the Late Night show squealing “THIS IS THE FUTURE OF GAMING”? Or, on a more practical level, how important it is to be showing on TV that the whole thing actually works?
Below “more” you can see the whole video showing future gaming in action from side.
One of the biggest announcements at E3 was undoubtedly Microsoft’s Project Natal motion-sensing system. Based on the many conversations IndustryGamers had with publishers and developers during the show, the game industry is quite enthusiastic about the possibilities both Project Natal and PlayStation Motion will create.
What you may not have known, however, is that Epic’s Unreal Engine, which is already powering some of the biggest games in the business, was utilized by Microsoft to create some of the tech demos for the E3 Project Natal demonstration. Speaking to IndustryGamers as part of a larger interview, Epic VP Mark Rein noted with a grin, “I think [these technologies] will create great opportunities for us as an engine. The Paint Party game they showed and the other one [Ricochet] are both Unreal powered. Microsoft licensed Unreal Engine 3 for a whole bunch of games for that thing – you just saw the first two. We’re really excited.”
“We’re going to work with Microsoft and share all that stuff they added into Unreal with our partners; not just Natal, but also things like avatar integration. We were like, ‘if you’re developing all this stuff, do you mind if we share with all our licensees to give them a big head start?’ So Natal we’re just over the moon about – it’s the new platform and who’s the first engine on it?” he said excitedly.
Although Epic is clearly involved with Natal from the start, Rein also said Sony’s PlayStation Motion setup looked “quite cool.” He added, “Again, I think that creates big opportunities. We’re the biggest 3D engine on the platform, so hopefully lots of developers will want to make 3D things for that and [work with us].”
He noted that what impressed him about Paint Party is that you think about painting as a 2D experience, but “they actually managed to incorporate some of the motion sensing – like
how it reacts depending on how hard you throw the paint – to make it easier and cooler for kids and families to play.” Rein continued, “It really used our engine, like some of the particle effects, our 3D rendering, etc. The other game used our engine even more, since it’s more into the screen 3D [motion].”
We’ve all seen the Microsoft Press Conference, Peter Molyneux’s Milo, and Kudo’s avatar glitching out. So, as the dust settles on what was arguably Microsoft’s biggest E3 announcement – the motion-sensing Project Natal – what’s there to say about it?
It’s certainly an interesting idea. To remove controllers from the equation and have players sit in front of the screen with a pair of cameras and a microphone sensing their visual and aural input and interpreting it for gaming.
Amazingly, after a wave of speculation at the press conference, it seems to really work. What impressed the most at E3? Read the rest of this entry »
Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo had the opportunity to give Microsoft’s Project Natal the once-over, thought he had the device all figured out, spotting three flaws in the system. However, it would seem that by his own admission, all three analysis were wrong.
His first thought was that it would not be able to handle multi-player gaming, but project director Kudo Tsunoda directed his attention to a display which showed how easily the device was reading both their bodies as they stood before the sensors.
“We appeared on screen as simplified, mutli-jointed stick figure skeletons within silhouettes of our bodies. It clearly saw us as separate people. There would be no problem, he said, for the system to support a game that let us play at the same time and track our movements separately.”
Totilo thought that he might be able to get away with playing Burnout Paradise one-handed, but it seems that notion, too, was in error.
If you’ve ever played any kind of video game, you’ll find it hard not to be excited watching this demo video of Project Natal — the much-discussed controllerless gaming system for the Xbox 360 that Microsoft unveiled this week. Once you’re done with that, check this even more impressive (and vaguely creepy) one. Microsoft bills Natal as more than just a peripheral, but a revolutionary leap forward in gaming: a system that finally makes the controller invisible, opening video games to anyone who ever looked at a joystick and said, “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
As testimonies come in across the Web, it’s becoming clear that Natal is more than just hype. It could be as game-changing (if you’ll pardon the pun) as the Wiimote. But remember, this is Microsoft we’re talking about. Creator of the Zune. Maker of Windows Vista. Author of PlaysForSure. Given the company’s checkered past (the Xbox 360 being a very relevant exception), there’s a chance it might screw up Natal, too.
Natal is too promising a system to go to waste, though. After the jump, read a breakdown of why Natal could be what everyone’s playing in the future, and some cautionary supposition about how Microsoft still might blow it.
1. No Controller = No Intimidation
Natal takes the idea that made the Wii a success — that using natural, motion-controlled movements will make the system more accessible to nongamers — and brings it to a logical conclusion. Just as Wii Tennis and Bowling opened up gaming to people who’d never touched a joystick, Natal’s full motion capture is even more inviting. Instead of “take this stick,” now it’s just “stand over there.”
How Microsoft could blow it: If the motion capture isn’t sophisticated enough, things might get awkward. But Natal boasts 48 points of real-time motion capture on a human body, in three dimensions, so if anything the problem might be that it’s too sophisticated, with too many things to consider while you’re moving, or possibly complicated calibration. And dare I say an almost disgustingly PC question — what about the disabled?
2. Promising Gameplay, but Titles…?
The demo video shows a family playing various games, and it all looks great. Natal looks surprisingly adaptable: The bit where the kid imports his skateboard design is way cool, though for some reason the part where the girl and her friend pick out a dress via a teleconference seems a little fictional to me. Still, Natal’s apparent level of sophistication is so amazing, it’s hard to believe it’s based on a console that’s almost four years old.
It’s official: Motion control sensors are the future of gaming. Microsoft wowed the world this week at E3, with a demonstration of Project Natal, a full-body motion control system for the Xbox 360. Not to be outdone, just one day later at E3, Sony demonstrated its own next-generation motion controller for the PlayStation 3. Sony’s controller is a wireless, microphone-shaped device with several buttons and a glowing sphere on the top. The motion controller’s sphere is tracked by the PS3’s PlayStation Eye camera, and, based on Sony’s demo, the controller looks like it can be used in almost any gaming genre.
LOS ANGELES — Microsoft revealed a motion-sensing gadget for the Xbox 360 that it said will change the future of entertainment — and not just play catch-up with Nintendo’s Wii.
If it works as promised, the device could dramatically raise the ante in the competition between the Xbox, Wii and PlayStation and usher in a new era of immersive entertainment.
Code-named Project Natal, the device is a horizontal bar about nine inches wide and stuffed with cameras, depth sensors and array microphones.
SOURCE: Microsoft
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