Posts Tagged ‘xbox 360’
Speaking at the First Annual Microsoft Open House in Manhattan yesterday, E&D Division prez Robbie Bach danced around the issue of pricing the company’s upcoming motion tech for Xbox 360. “Relative to Natal, we’ll see how the pricing/costs work out,” Bach said. “But I think people should expect it to be like other things: We work through the price curve, just like we have with other products.”
Though muddled, Bach’s comment does not suggest that Natal will hit retail costing an arm and a leg (geddit?), but rather the device’s launch price will be set high enough for significant discounts to go into effect over time. Using Wii as the bad example, Bach emphasized that Nintendo’s launch price and its new discounted price aren’t notably different. “When you start at $249, I don’t know that a [price drop to] $199 — I don’t know how much difference that’s going to make in the marketplace,” Bach observed. “We’ll see.”
Project Natal price to launch with room to drop originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It’s not every day that the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation apologizes to you, so excuse us if we drink deeply of Steve Ballmer’s statement to IGN, in which he apologized for referencing a new 360 console to launch in 2010 last week.
Specifically, he said “I confused the issue with my poorly chosen words. There is no news in my comments. Things are as reported after E3. Sorry.” Tell you what, Steve, you give us one of your patented “World’s Greatest Back Rubs,” and all is forgiven. (Also, we’re sure you meant a new Xbox 360 bundle, right?)
Ballmer sorry about confusing Natal 2010 statement originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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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.
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.
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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Steven Spielberg and Xbox’s Don Mattrick on the ‘revolutionary’ hands-free control system
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