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That's cooler than Minority Report. Anyone that's not skeptical has no experience at ever being promised anything, but it's nonetheless pretty cool. Seems like something that should be integrated into their next gen so it can work as seamlessly as possible, not something for the 360.

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yeah, was talking about that with bish - itd be a hard sell as a "must-have" accessory/periphrial, but if they want to get it out there and start working out the kinks, that might be alright too. From the vague, generic games they showed, its clear we're looking at some kinda prototype...MS seems to be one step ahead this gen, i think they'll likely want to make sure they have this kinda thing ironed-out & field tested before integrating it more fully into the inevitable xbox 720. still, yeah, its hard to watch that and not be interested.

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alright, so id say MS owned so far, i hope sony & nintendo have some shit to match.

 

Project Natal alone has my interest

 

Don't know about project Natal. Has Shades of that old Red Steel promo trailer that made me think it was going to be the greatest FPS ever made.

 

Don't expect me to swallow this "Note: Target Video - Actual Experience may vary" bullshit.

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this thing won't gain much traction as a $200 extra, so you might look at this as an expensive beta for the 720. Plus your looking at 2011 looks like so this was just to grab headlines. on the other hand you now have the problem of it being known to long before it's out which means either people will forget about it(I'd guess not) or they will expect way too much. plus on top of that they let sony and nintendo know way to early so we might see this on their sucessers too(or something similar like how the ps3 got the sixaxis)

 

That said it's just tech demo stuff right now and we've seen how often that pans out :/. I think it's got less to do with gaming and more with web browsing and stuff(would rock so hard on a pc) pure movement would proabbly have alot of issues outside of stuff like rpgs, remember the wiimote does use movements but alot of stuff with the buttons as well, but it might work really well used with a remote(which then turns it into a wiimote basicly lol) on the other hand I want to see a fighting game with vs mode so I can watch the video of someone getting kicked in the face..

 

I wonder why they released info on this so early? just to 'win' this E3?

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Don't know about project Natal.

Has Shades of that old Red Steel promo trailer that made me think it was going to be the greatest FPS ever made.Don't expect me to swallow this "Note: Target Video - Actual Experience may vary" bullshit.

 

Pretty much the internet reaction to it, and i get it - again, i put up "the next Activator?!" in the thread for it cause it could very well be that, but then, it could be closer to what we'd wanted from the Wii.

 

ill prolly move this talk over to that thread (if its cool) but to me, the biggest issue itll have up front is being a possibly $200 peripheral trying to get studios to make an interesting game for its potentially small clientele. as an option right now, though, i dont get why people are as fussy about the concept....you cant say you saw MS & Sony seeing nintendo's bottom line and never imagined them going a different angle to get in on that?

 

 

Gun - i think you kinda answered your own question - this got headlines. i put up that Time piece to show just that: MS wants it know theyre trying to stay ahead of the curve, and this tech demo (along with that creepy pet kid Molyneaux was on about) did just that. I agree with you on it being a 720 beta though, if it pans out.

 

and yeah, i think you're on the money with the genre idea - the right game built around this would lend itself beautifully. Prolly one of the biggest issues most people've had with the Wii so far is limiting damn near every game to a control scheme it wasnt designed for.

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No, there are "real games" that could be awesome on this, just not too many ported over from games made for use with a controller. It identifies 48 individual joints, so you have more "buttons" that ever before. A fighting game built for this could be unreal, but Mortal Kombat ports might not be. The Time piece mentions how the Burnout game is so receptive to your movements that you don't initially trust it and you exaggerate your movements, but when you actually move your arms like you would in a car, it tracks your movements perfectly. I think MS will eventually decide to integrate this with their next gen system instead of making an add on in the twilight years of the 360's run.

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yes you have 48 joints but your insane if you think I want to use them all or if something like that would work right, This is really useful for using gestures(a la wiimote) or full body movement(I punch the screen punchs type stuff) but having to bend my elbow at a 36 degree angle to bring up an options screen would suck really fast.

 

George and I were talking about this and much like the wiimote is it's proabbly best used for most games working with a controller. Also price point will be hugelly important, I think 100 is perfect, george thinks 150 would be ok with a good game and we both think at 200 it would fail pretty epiclly. The longer it takes to come out the harder it will be to get good penetration in this gen and the less of them out there the less chance for really good games.

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i agree with much of gun's sentiments here. could easily feel like/be a beta, but a fun one if supported right, and at worst, end up in the closet next to the super scope.

 

Kotaku's unveiled a lot of details since its premier, including the fact that its supposed to be able to pick up multiple players as well as fingers & such. i know sony & everyone else have left us super jaded this gen, but again, i cant not be excited by what theyre going for here.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Microsoft has a fun visual (concept) demo of Natal up, they're promising the moon but again if even some of that works out, ill be game.

 

i gotta dig up links on this, but basically CES (recent Consumer Electronics Show) revealed Natal's no longer gonna have its own processor; its basically gonna leech a bit off the 360's and work through it, meaning it can be patched/firmware updated. while some were sad that this meant older games wouldnt work with it (i honestly dont know why anyone thought this was the case, or even how that'd work?), industry people are saying its good news because a) it can be improved/AI can correct itself over time this way to adjust to motions, etc and b) it can now be manufactured/sold a lot cheaper. Various guesses at the moment have the standalone device around $50-75, sold at a profit right off the bat, which would mean feasibly getting it bundled with software for under/around $100, something i consider a fair opening prince.

 

MS also said its launching this holiday season (2010 xmas or so), again if this is true and it goes around that price/brings something interesting, im thinking i might be down to try it out day 1.

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  • 2 months later...
Some advice for any Xbox 360 owners thinking ahead to the launch of Microsoft's Project Natal later this year: You might want to see if you'll need to reconfigure your living room. After all, the motion-sensing control system is no sit-on-the-couch experience. You'll need some space to move your body and swing your arms without banging into the coffee table.

 

To be precise, you'll want to clear an area extending at least 4 meters (a little more than 13 feet) away from the television. That's the back edge of the space to be taken into account by the Natal sensors. In terms of width and height, the field of vision naturally expands as it moves from the Natal device to that back edge, ending up a little more than 4 meters wide and 2.7 meters high (about 8 feet, 10 inches).

 

Those were among the tidbits passed along by representatives of the Natal team during a briefing for a group of reporters and bloggers Monday on the company's Redmond campus. The session was part of a day-long technology discussion held by Craig Mundie, the company's chief research and strategy officer.

 

Natal, announced last year at the E3 video-game convention, is due out by the holidays. It's Microsoft's effort to bring its own "natural user interface" to the Xbox 360. It differs from Nintendo's Wii and Sony's upcoming Motion Controller, in that the camera system senses movement without requiring the gamer to hold a controller. (However, one of the details that emerged from the session is that controllers and accessories can be used in conjunction with moving around to add even more elements of control to games.)

 

During the Monday session, we quizzed Don Mattrick, who heads the company's video-game business as its senior vice president of interactive entertainment. Mattrick said the response from consumers in testing of Project Natal has been "off the charts." Mattrick said he's excited about the types of experiences that game developers are creating with the system, declining to go into details. He noted that Natal is also getting interest from the broader entertainment industry, citing as an example Steven Spielberg's early endorsement.

 

The session included lots of technical details on the Natal device, including its three sensors for measuring the depth of the room, capturing the gamer's movement and ensuring adequate light. The machine-learning system can also tell where parts of your body should be even if they aren't visible to the camera, such as an arm tucked behind your back. (Technical phrase: "Extremity occlusion resilient.")

 

The Natal team says the device requires less in the way of processing than the average smartphone, because they wanted to leave as much processing as possible available to the game itself.

 

As for the price? Mattrick wouldn't say, but he predicted that it won't be as much as consumers who have tested the device might expect, given the amount of fun they say they're having. Microsoft has created the Natal device with off-the-shelf components, which has the effect of keeping costs down and positioning the company to take advantage of broader industry advances in vision technology and sensors.

 

"We're going to drive the business, and make it scale, and make it profitable," Mattrick said.

 

Say what now?

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yeah, ive been reading that. man, i hope the distance doesnt dick with my vision, god knows i like sitting close. still, that's a lotta space. then again, i dont wear wiimote straps, so i already live on the edge.

 

in related news, Fable 3 is confirmed to have Natal use. to what extent, ive not yet read.

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This is what gets me:

However, one of the details that emerged from the session is that controllers and accessories can be used in conjunction with moving around to add even more elements of control to games.

 

Maybe it's just me but it sounds like another Wii rip.

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ah, they can't win, though.

sony looked to be pleasing some by doing 1:1 motion control with analog buttons & such. Natal scares people with totally hands-free play, and now says they might integrate some use of controls, and they still take slack.

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not sure i follow exactly: if you mean add-on as in controllers in conjunction with Natal, the demo videos make it seem like almost any object would do. if you mean Natal itself as an add-on...yeah, but if they actually push/rebrand the 360 (let's say the holidays see a new slim model + Natal, or standalone for < $100)...i mean, all the headlines they had with the tech demos & talk of software support...maybe im being optimistic, but sony & MS both really want in on this market, im thinking its not going to be taken on the same level as a super scope/menacer.

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maybe not superscope but untill it happens otherwise I really wonder how many people(past the hardcore, they don't want the hardcore they want casual market nintendo has) will buy it. The other side is games, will the games be good, hwo many games will be made, it's not so bad if your a big name stuido(though having to do special natal/psmove controls will add to game costs) but smaller studios will have to see if it's worth it to them to put out titles for it, the install base will never be more then what... 50% at best? and thats if they start out just putting it in every xbox (they won't, there will still be a low end model that comes without it)

 

Maybe I'm wrong and people will flock but will it be the people they want or do those people already have a wii and if they do why change? There's a good saying that if you are trying to get into a market when it's already blown up your already too late.

 

There's also the chance that they are trying to do this instead of launching a new system to try and push that back futher since I havnt' heard a damn thing about the ps4/xbox 720.

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