Project Natal
 

(This isn't really fitting for the Japanese Video games and toys forum, or the video thread, there was a little bit aobut it in the E3 thread but I feel as though something this big needs its own thread))

Alright, if you guys haven't heard about it.
Watch.
YouTube - E3 2009: Project Natal Xbox 360 Announcement

Move over Wii.

What Project Natal does is takes gaming, straps some dynamite to it, and blows it all to hell.

Natal is the revolution of gaming as we know it. It takes the Wii and cranks it up times 10. It can learn who you are, what you look like, how you feel, it can feel you and see you.

This video seals the deal for me.
YouTube - Project Natal: Meet Milo

Milo, oh, my, god.
RPG's and Adventure games as we know it are over.
Think about it, RPG's where you can really get to know your party, you get to completely immerse yourself into the game and fill your role in it.

..Natal isn't about. gaming, its taking the next step twords virtual reality.


So, discuss.

Hype machine oil sure smells pungent, doesn't it?

that milo thing brings a new meaning to imaginary friends hahaha

Thats for sure...the hype that I got from it was nuts though.

when they come out with a first person shooter with it ill be much more excited

Wonder how that'd work. You make a gun with your hand? Pew pew! Lmao.

For RPGs it might be cool but it's strange how it'll work with anything other than racing games and RPGs...

One thing I noticed is that they point out some incredible innovations here, BUT he never discusses the verbal interaction going on between the lady and Milo, which makes me suspicious that they both are following a script. Not once did he not understand her. Voice recognition software really is not at this point (if it was why would I be using my fingers to type this?)

Exactly, i was thinking about that and it was a huge bummer to me, some of it had to be scripted for sure.

Do consider that keyboards or mouse won't die so soon even if a decent voice technology is released, they are not dying to touch, let alone voice.

Also, Natal is an unreleased technology, it's a new technology. that is the innovation. Voice recognition, like you said, is not at this point yet. Based on what? Stuff you've seen till now? All of them are inferior to what Natal showed us.

I have no fear that my keyboard won't remain a keyboard for a long time to come. My point is, Milo wasn't introduced live and in person, but on a premade video. Yes, Natal has been demonstrated using live people, but not Milo.

Put it this way, if the voice recognition functions of Natal are as amazing as what was shown in the video, you would think that in 5 minutes he would have mentioned it at least once. He didn't and didn't demonstrate it live, which tells me, like you said, isn't there yet.

if milo was that advanced, john connor would be shitting in his pants. even with the technology for the system to locate your movements, there will be lag time from the point you move your arms and the point the computer processes it and animates it to the screen. i bet there will be problems locating your movements, hell, even nintendo wii's controller has a hard time locating your movements and there's something PHYSICALLY there to hold and process where your hands are pointing and moving and sensor bar etc. bleh i bet the best games will always be controlled via a controller :D

The only problem is the new Wii technology is available now. Who knows when Natal is coming out?

Wii MotionPlus...available now (though I don't think any games that support it are out yet)

I'm very pessimistic about this whole Natal hype. And yet I see people all over the internet jumping quickly to conclusions.

The two videos didn't really impress me,as I saw many flaws in them, like in first video where the girl is playing F1 racing game. I wish to see you play a game holding your hands like that, you'd get tired before the race finishes. Which means controllers will still be needed to play racing games, so natal doesn't really show anything new in this department.
Next, there the kid playing Godzilla. If you'll look at his legs you'll notice that he needs to move forward so that the monster would move too. And that's quite difficult and not very comfortable if you don't have a very spacious room. The same thing will go with any game that require lots of movement and I can't wait to see how they're gonna fix the problem.
Then, there's the skateboard game. Well, it proves that Natal doesn't exactly recognize body movements. It looked more like the kid was timing the movements with the game, and not really playing.
And of course the Milo video. "Milo is a character that can recognize us, he can recognize our faces, he can recognize our voices, he can recognize emotions in us". Now all we need is for Milo to make his own decisions and we've got ourselves a genuine AI., and the more I watched, the more I doubted, I got the same impression as in the skateboard scene, it seemed to me like the girl is talking in the right moment while program is running. Well, even if I'm wrong about that, you'll still get bored quickly playing games that are made solely for interacting and yet have limited dialog options.

In the end the point of my post is - to people who already started dreaming about playing games like Final Fantasy or Halo on Natal, I'm gonna have to disappoint you. it'll take 3-5 years for companies to start creating games where you can freely move and have complete interaction with non-playable characters. The way I see it right now, Natal is just a candy-coated Wii console, except without a Wii controller.

The Sony motion thing killed it... was much better.

It is used on wii sports resort and may be useable in the new punch out game. The wii motin plus is supposed to give you 1:1 motion sensitiviy.

When i watched the first video it just looked fake at first like how would it know exactly what you were doing if you were in a fighting game? it would see that a motion was made but it wouldn't exactly mimic you i have seen this on the wii on soul caliber on the wii it somewhat follows your motion but it dosn't exactly mimic you it gets a little close to the general direction of your movement and i just can not imagine this without a reference point.

Also when the boy scanned his skateboard into the game it was cool but how did it fill in the design that was underneath his fingers?

It looks like it is way to hyped up. It looks fun but i just do not think it is going to be as good as it looks.

The thing about milo looked kind of wrote. Was that supposed to be a video game?? i wouldn't want to play that onelol. It seemed interactive but that was not her first time playing and he wasn't really talking to her as much as mimicing what she said at best but it is most likely that she knew what he was going to say so she said somthing that would work with what he would use to reply.


If i didn't know this was actually at E3 i would have just assumed it was a fake video.

Natal is at its very early stage of development. It's not gonna come anytime soon, probably it will released to developers before us so when it gets released it has games already. I predict 1-2 years for developers and 3-5 (like you said) for us, along with a new XBox (I heard they were gonna throw one soon).

Plus, all hardware isn't perfect at first release.

Except for the fact that the Sony motion thing doesn't exist yet.

are you talking about the motion conrol in the ps3 remote? It works okay but it just knows if you turn the controller not really even the same as the wii or the natal thing.

I was impressed by the potential for the technology.

The potential. Potential is always impressive - the actual implementation is what matters in the end. My feeling at this point is that the videos were what they dream of doing and are hoping they can pull off. Reality is hardly ever so sweet.

I fully agree. It seems too good.

YouTube - Sony Motion Controller E3 Tech Demo

It does exist. It was in the sony E3 conference and it was live.

I saw it, what I mean is, it is not available for consumers. It is still in R&D.

iPhantom, you seem to have some Nintendo grudge for some unknown reason and I'm not entirely sure why you are comparing technology that's been on the market for like 3 years to something that's not even finished yet.

In any case, as I already said previously my concerns are with the voice recognition system which is far from perfect at this point in time. I'm pretty sure it would struggle with my accent. It was pre-recorded, so we have no idea if it actually works. It could have been set up to appear to work perfectly. If it worked so amazing like they showed, then I'm pretty sure Microsoft would have demonstrated it live. They are flashy and like to pull out the big guns.

So until I'm playing it with my own hands, I remain skeptical, but I am pleased they are going in this direction and indeed if it does work as they say it does I will be very impressed.

I agree with missmisa. I played a game that was supposed to be voice controlled granted it was a couple years ago and it was not that good. It was a mystery shooter type game and it was highly inacurate.

Wii Motion Plus was just released. I'm comparing what they showed us to E3. Sony's Motion was far much better and it will be out very soon... it is already in developer's hand. And before somebody comes saying it is a ripoff from Wii, no, it was in the works since the day EyeToy came, way before Wii's controller.

I don't have a grudge against Nintendo at all. I was disappointed big time by their E3.

Plus like I said Natal is still at early stage of development... too early to make any judgment on it.

I think it is hard to compare the big three at E3 because they all were showing things at different stages of development. Wii MotionPlus made it's debut at E3 2008, and it took a full year for it to hit shelves. In 2009 they showed it again, but this time just weeks before launch. As a consumer, I notice that.

PS3 had an impressive demonstration with a lot of potential, but the controllers haven't been designed yet.

Natal is indeed the most impressive, but things like Milo are still concepts. Who knows when we will see anything like that.

The Sony Motion Controller also use a motion sensor but it is augmented with visual information fed by a camera that can see a tracker (the glowy end of the remote). The presence of the motion sensor in Sony's product is significant because that's what propelled the visual motion tracking from "relatively bad" to "really cool". Why? Because optical (color) tracking alone was simply not good enough. But when combined with a motion sensor, it actually surpasses the Wii Motion Plus.

Thanks to the internal sensor, the Sony Motion Controller knows exactly what orientation/acceleration it currently has but it also knows exactly where it is in space and what kind of motion the controller is really doing in the real world. Unlike the Nintendo solution, Sony has much less "guess work" to do because it can "see" what's going on, although we think that games will still have to make some assumption about the current activity.

On top of that, it will be available on Spring 2010. I predict games from Wii being ported to PS3. The only problem of PS3 is the price... and buying a PS3 + and expensive controller isn't the best idea. Everybody was looking forward for a price cut by Sony on E3 but it really disappointed everyone.

I hope project natal is good and not another let down like the dreaded eye toy... and the wii.

Motion Plus of Sony uses Eye Toy.

How?...................

I recon we're gonna have to either scan in guns we already have (lolz if it's a real one) or buy a cheap piece of plastic from GAME or some other game shop

Yea I think Misa missed that part where it can recognize stuff.

+ you can use toys for steering wheels and that would be a lot cheaper.

some of my friends said that this project might end up in a failure because they have to compete with Wii which is at the moment untouchable.. :D

I smell a fanboy somewhere....

You've got a problem with fanboys? *shakes fist*

...A little..

compete in what? Sales? Because that is where the Wii dominates, sales. For hardcore gaming, Wii comes last.