Topic: Microsoft's Xbox Kinect - Nov 4th 2010

[EasyCure]

Black and white would work really well with this. No really.

Also, GTA: Where my money bitch? where you literally have to smack your hoes when they disrespectin' would be off the chain. No wonder TakeTwo is jumping on it.

Oh god, Hot Cofee Natal...

[BlackNMild2k1]

Black and white would work really well with this. No really.

Also, GTA: Where my money bitch? where you literally have to smack your hoes when they disrespectin' would be off the chain. No wonder TakeTwo is jumping on it.

Oh god, Hot Cofee Natal...

*Dad walks in on son playing Hot Coffee Natal..... walk right back out of the room*

moments later....
*Mom walks in on son playing Hot Coffee Natal, drops whatever is in her hands and then faints thinking her son has maybe seen what her and daddy do when they think he is asleep"

[EasyCure]

They'll give new meaning to the term "hardcore"

[Stogi]

SPR: Sex Positions REVOLUTION

[Spak-Spang]

You know I am going to have to try to give a balanced position here. 

I am kinda shocked that everyone at the Nintendo website is talking like this honestly.  I remember when Nintendo first unveiled the Wiimote and people were shocked and upset about the new controller.  If I remember correctly the very first introduction didn't even show the Wii Nunchuk so we had no idea how it would play traditional games and we were dumb founded how games would be played on the system.

There was even hype from developers that didn't totally understand the hardware jumping on the bandwagon.  In the end, Nintendo proved to have more up their sleeve with the technology and the Wii remote and its accessories worked beautifully.  All we know right now is the Natal tech demo stuff and what has been shown.  There may be a type of controller with the system in the end, or the technology may really work where you don't need a controller at all.

The point is any innovation in gaming is a good thing, and we should celebrate it. 

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

But MS promoted this to be used with NO CONTROLLER.
Sony patented using house hold items as objects in game, so you can scratch that out too.

All thats left is air guitar, finger gun, invisible wheel with hokey pokey pedals and looking at the bottom of my shoe.

Why should we be optimistic about this?
I'm not outright dismissing it or anything, I'm just not seeing what the hype is all about yet.
All I have seen is Rare desperately seeking non-gamers for fresh looks towards non-gaming and developers spouting off horrible control set-ups for existing genres that they are forcing to work with Natal.

When they show something worth being optimistic about, then maybe we won't be so quick to criticize....

or maybe we will.

[Stogi]

Spak, I undestand your point, but do you remember what the first piece of software Nintendo showed us that used the Wiimote?

Miyamoto playing conductor in Wiimusic.

That made it instantly click for everybody; even the skeptics. From then on we were shown the Wiisports package and it blew everyone away. Why? Because it seemed so natural.

This, however, does not. After thinking about it for a while, I was only able to come up with one game that it could possibly work well with. Remember when all we knew was that the Wiimote would use licensed technology from a company that made gyroscopes? I made hundreds of plausible games that are still feasible today.

That's the difference. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't wrap my head around how this would be for GAMING. This is awesome if you want to interact with someone across the world, and for telecommunication in general, but for gaming? I just don't know yet and nothing I've seen as proved the concept to me.

[KDR_11k]

More importantly it's Microsoft we're talking about, they have a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver just to kill off a competing product with hype about what "will be", once the job is done the advertised product is either frozen eternally or stripped down massively.

[EasyCure]

Natal doesn't have buttons and probably never will. 'nuff said.

Want more? Fine. At least the wii remote (even when shown alone, before the nunchuk) had buttons. Done.

No, but seriously, it was still something that gamers could wrap their heads around, but still also odd enough to be curious about. The point is there was something there to speculate on. The thought process was "well we know it has buttons and a D-pad, but how will it offer analog control? We know it'll have IR controls for 'pixel perfect accuracy' so maybe certain types of games will play like DS stylus controlled games...?" There was something there we could understand, and the stuff we didn't we could speculate on. It was easy to come up with what would be blue ocean games, like wiisports, would be like; "oh hey you can use it to swing a bat, like baseball!" and we had to question what core games like Mario/Zelda would play like...

Now, take what we know about Natal (meant to be used WITHOUT a controller, at all. None.) and couple that with what Microsofts intentions for it are (a means to cater to the "casual" grandma crowd) and what we're left wondering is:

-How will this work for core games? FPS specifically (being the seamingly dominant genre on the xbox brand)

-Will this even be used at ALL for core games?

-Will this become a standard feature of the xbox? Something that'll be packed in with a future console?

It just seems that with Wii, it was either something ya understood right away, or didn't. With Natal.. no one seems to "get it" yet. Couple that with Microsofts intentions and its hard NOT to be skeptical about the whole thing.

[Smash_Brother]

I'll stop being a skeptic when I try the thing for myself and it works, despite me having someone walk in front of me mid-game, despite dimming the lights and seeing if it can still see me.

[Spak-Spang]

All I am saying that I am surprised that we are talking that it will fail without even giving it a shot.

To me it really just depends on how sensitive and accurate the game camera is for the game.  Do I see multi-player games at home being easily possible?  Some yes, but not all.

Do I see a Wii Sports clone working perfectly with the technology, YES actually I do.

Do I see some sort of benefit and use with on rail shooters, even allowing for some advanced character interaction with the camera, yes I do.

Do I see a good football Quarterback simulation being designed, hell yeah, and it sounds sweet in my head.

Will games have to change to be designed for Natal yes...but games had to change to be designed for Wii, perhaps not as drastically but they still changed.  Also just because Microsoft said no buttons does not mean no peripherals or controller additions of any kind.  I can see a MS Wheel, MS Gun and such that will be designed for the camera to recognize.  I can see some interesting games come out of this hardware. 

Is it as good as the Wii?  Hell no.  But I think it would be interesting is the Wii 2 introduced this technology along with the Wiimote M+ Nunchuk combo. 

 

[EasyCure]

I'll agree with you that it would be very VERY interesting to see the Wii sucessor use this type of tech along with a Wiimote+.

As for your other points, well.. honestly? C'mon, this whole thing is such a bigger risk that what Nintendo did with Wii its not even funny. We're taking about a machine from Nintendo, who know what they're doing most of the time, that made motion controlers its standard from day one and had games for the new market as well as the old in the pipeline from day one, all for a starting price of $250.

Then you've got MS who is doing Natal as an afterthought and as an attempt to take some of the new market from nintendo. They think casual gamers are too stupid to use buttons so they went with the most dumbed down thing they could do (and in turn made it MORE complicated for something as simple as a racing game...) and are asking for at least $200 for an xbox as well as the (rumoured) $200 for an as of yet un-proved peripheral with as of yet un-solid support line up.

Sorry, still skeptical but I'd love to be proven wrong. This type of tech is the stuff that'll bring us closer to VR, and thats something I hope we achieve in my lifetime dammit.

[BwrJim!]

hey now, lets not forget that one day.  when the project actually comes out, it will be old hat.   Its kinda like the Halo story.. That game was close to 5 years old by the time they got it to market.   I remember when it was the MAC dream game that was going to switch everything around for gaming on the mac (well at least until it got ported to a pc).   

Natal if used correctly could be fun, but I think that tech should really be put off by 2 console releases.   By that time, homes should have the 3d tvs in a much wider range across the US and natal would sync very nicely with that.  A very close step to a holodeck like performance.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Also just because Microsoft said no buttons does not mean no peripherals or controller additions of any kind.  I can see a MS Wheel, MS Gun and such that will be designed for the camera to recognize.  I can see some interesting games come out of this hardware. 

I'm not really sure but I think Nintendo patented using the controller in a peripheral for a gaming console. a "controller shell".

Sony patented using "real-life" objects as the object in the game,

So anything MS releases would have to be it's own hardware and therefore more expensive. Unless they release cheap plastic toys to play Natal with, but I'm sure that violates one patent or the other.

[Stogi]

I really really really like the idea of Natal. It's an awesome piece of technology, but it's not a good fit for gaming. I can see myself using this to control a computer attached to the TV. In a Minority Report like fashion, I could swap through programs and edit images and video.

I think Colbert has the right idea about it and he's the one that loved the Wii. http://gamerblips.dailyradar.com/video/steven_colbert_on_project_natal_video/

[Smash_Brother]

1. I don't believe the technology will be that reliable. The wiimote can work in a pitch black room, so long as it can see the sensor bar. Natal will no doubt demand a large, well-lit area to play in, something that most homes just don't have.

2. Marathon gaming sessions won't be possible. If EVERY input has to be a gesture of some kind, you won't be able to enjoy the multiple hours of gaming that we all know and love. With the wii remote+chuk, you can actually sit in all kinds of positions that you can't with a standard controller because your hands no longer need to be glued together. You can even put your arm around someone while playing. All you need to do most of the time is push buttons with very little motion required (often none).

Natal steers gaming in a direction that would only further remove depth. It's a neat novelty to be able to pretend to throw a football and see your character throw a football on screen, but without actual force-feedback, it'll never be anything more than a novelty and you'll quickly find that most people would just prefer to sit down with a controller to play the damn game.

[EasyCure]

1. I don't believe the technology will be that reliable. The wiimote can work in a pitch black room, so long as it can see the sensor bar. Natal will no doubt demand a large, well-lit area to play in, something that most homes just don't have.

2. Marathon gaming sessions won't be possible. If EVERY input has to be a gesture of some kind, you won't be able to enjoy the multiple hours of gaming that we all know and love. With the wii remote+chuk, you can actually sit in all kinds of positions that you can't with a standard controller because your hands no longer need to be glued together. You can even put your arm around someone while playing. All you need to do most of the time is push buttons with very little motion required (often none).

Natal steers gaming in a direction that would only further remove depth. It's a neat novelty to be able to pretend to throw a football and see your character throw a football on screen, but without actual force-feedback, it'll never be anything more than a novelty and you'll quickly find that most people would just prefer to sit down with a controller to play the damn game.

And at least the wiimote gives you rumble for some time of feedback?

[BlackNMild2k1]

1. I don't believe the technology will be that reliable. The wiimote can work in a pitch black room, so long as it can see the sensor bar. Natal will no doubt demand a large, well-lit area to play in, something that most homes just don't have.

Actually I believe that Natal uses infrared for depth perception and movement capture so the lighting of the room doesn't actually matter.

But every other point stands.

[NWR_pap64]

The main I am skeptic about Natal is because I have played camera based games before and they tend to have a lot of issues, from body recognition to lighting issues. Natal is basically one HUGE camera game dependent on body motions for action to happen on screen. The setup is going to be key in creating a solid experience. From the demos it seems Natal has issues recognizing skin color, hair and such, and every time it is demoed it is shown in a very lit room. If the player has to setup the game each time they want to play them what's the point?

Not to mention that some of the ideas mentioned are very, very silly and will likely never happen. For example, the clothing demo is silly because Natal would have to scan your body in all angles so it can create a perfect paper doll of yourself, then be able to digitally put the clothes on you and make them fit perfectly. Not to mention that, like Malstrom mentioned once, I doubt any clothing company would bother scanning all of their collections for a novelty.

Then there's the whole Milo project, which is extremely pretentious and I KNOW will be a disappointment in the end.

[Smash_Brother]

1. I don't believe the technology will be that reliable. The wiimote can work in a pitch black room, so long as it can see the sensor bar. Natal will no doubt demand a large, well-lit area to play in, something that most homes just don't have.

Actually I believe that Natal uses infrared for depth perception and movement capture so the lighting of the room doesn't actually matter.

But every other point stands.

Are you sure? Last I heard, Natal had problems identifying people with darker skin, meaning that not only is Natal racist, but it suggests that it uses visible light instead of infrared.

That would also mean that ONE infrared source in the room would throw it off. What if there's sunlight coming in a window behind you (no shade will keep 100% of it out) or you play with a lamp behind you?

I admit, I haven't kept up with how exactly it works, but it sounds like it's going to be difficult to create an ideal situation for it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

You could be right, but i remember vaguely some MS person saying something about infrared camera and making the lighting of the room immaterial. Supposedly the camera uses several different light spectrum's to see and that's why a separate CPU was needed. It's supposedly why the tech is supposedly so expensive.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Natal is nice because it's not a rehashed gamepad, doesn't support mouse & keyboard, and has no C-Stick.

I hope Microsoft throws their entire weight behind it, making its crash all the more juicy while sacrificing the existing Xbox platform and audience in the process.

If it helps to further drive non-casual gaming and its gamers and press into extinction, I condone it.

[Peachylala]

Yes, we need idiots to make fun of. DON'T DO IT MICROSOFT!

[KDR_11k]

I recall the infrared talk being speculation because MS bought a company that had it but they stated themselves that they looked at the tech but didn't use it for Natal.

[BlackNMild2k1]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/project-natal-video-hands-on-impressions-and-further-details/

After our meeting, we actually had a chance to speak with another source who was able to show us the software guts behind the Natal, so that we could understand the method by which tracking is done. The box uses two sensors for input: a video camera, and an infrared camera (that light you see in the press photo is either power, or some part of the IR setup). The infrared data is used to gauge depth and the video camera movement, but it's the software Microsoft has developed which is really doing the magic. We were shown an example of the raw output of the system, which melds the two sources and then breaks them down into a wireframe of objects, a heatmap (for depth), and a point-map (which is akin to one of those hand imprint needle toys). The software merges all of this together to create a picture of movement in the room, allowing for some pretty crazy detail of what is going on.

http://kotaku.com/5279531/microsoft-project-natal-can-support-multiple-players-see-fingers

I thought Natal had to be used in bright light.

Wrong? The demos I played of Natal were set up in dimly-lit hotel rooms, except for Peter Molyneux's Milo demo which was set in a bright room. Tsunoda said lighting was a non-issue for Natal. Maybe so, maybe not. But if it works in a dim room, that's not bad.