looks good on the vid. But so did the wii. And I hated the wii. Never lived up to the potential. +_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Lol, just noticed the disclaimer 7 second in on the bottom left. Product vision: Actual features and function may vary. In otherwords, we're making it up as we go along and hope we can do half of what we show.....
It'll come down to the hardware - if it's some cheap £49.99 i won't expect much.. If it's a high quality £150 piece of kit - it could work.. I'll definitely buy it to as it looks mad. Of course it'll need crazy amount of programming to make it work fluidly.. It just scares me that the hardware will be cheap and scarifies on it a little.. All for the sake of mass adoption. Incredibly ambitious - If microsoft pull it off.. Like that ad.. It's really game over for all the other consoles imo, as this could be revolutionary.
heh, the tech is simple (look up "time-of-flight monocular cameras" if you fancy reading up on the tech). it NEEDS to cost £49.99 otherwise nobody will buy it. I'll say that it has the potential to work very well, and better than the nintento wii remote, but it comes with its own set of problems. occlusion being the main one. it isn't 3d - it's 2d + depth, so the camera needs to see all the bits that need tracking. if your hand goes behind your back it won't be able to track it, and if you have two users standing close to each other waving their hands about and they happen to overlap each other, the software would have to be very robust to not be completely freaked out by that.
But how would an FPS work? Would the camera notice the difference between a single trigger pull and a prolonged squeeze? Would I need to physically crawl on the floor to dodge machine gun fire? The theory sounds great, a more inclusive almost VR type of gameplay. But if it is made, my bets on it being even more dumded down than the video makes it out to be. But seeing as its just a peripheral to an already existing system, more power to them. Edit: Also what about the fat gamers? Where's the love for that 99% of the market?
So it's an Eye Toy on acid, the advert makes it look like it could be quite cool, but at the same time I doubt it's gonna be able to be as awesome as it looks. Plus, I've played totem ball, holding your arms up like that hurts like hell after a while, an endurance race on forza really would be an endurance.
I don't think the system will be adopted to hardcore games right away. What I believe is Microsoft is introducing this system to the 360 for a trial run. If things go over well, we'll probably see it incorporated into Microsoft's next console system. I really hope this works out for Microsoft! I'm a fan.
the imaging devices used to generate the depth map are ridiculously low resolution (200 pixels square is considered a high resolution device in this tech) so you're not going to be recognising hand/finger gestures at all - whole body gestures only. it's NOT an eyetoy on acid. eyetoy tech is very, very dumb in comparison. this is completely different in the way it works, and does give proper body tracking as long as it can 'see' all your body parts without them being occluded.
Looks pretty sweet to me. Anyone one else here the question "how many pushups can chuck norris do?"....made me chuckle!
The painting program looked like fun, but it's probably something that a lot of users would use maybe once and not go back to (although I know my nephew would probably play with that more than anything else). The Burnout demo looked good too, but I agree with veles, holding your arms up in that position will kill after a few laps. Still, looking forward to seeing what they do with it.
Same here, I really can't see it completely taking over from the controller; many games will just have some gimmick involving the camera.
The PS3 one looked very nice, camera, and 3 controllers with buttons. HE was playing a FPS and aiming much better than on the wii.
As cool as it would be to not need a controller, I think the PS3 version (same as Wii but improved on) is much better. I think its better to still have a controller to use. I watched the PS3 demonstration live and it was really cool. It's basically the same as the Wii but much improved and extremely accurate. The way the PS3 one is going it could create just what I wanted. A shooter that you yourself aim instead of analog sticks which makes the game based on skill. They could make some really amazing military simulators with it.
Well the guys at engadget got to have a go with it.. Gave a little review http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/03/project-natal-video-hands-on-impressions-and-further-details/ Seems like this thing is shaping upto be as promised.. Geez, impressive. Considering it's not finished yet essentially - and they seem to think it's living up to what is promised except for a few bits of improvement.. Gotta say, they test run this on the 360.. Then incorporate it into the next gen console. I could see them really blowing Sony and Nintendo out of the water if its as fluid as promised.
Its going to fail big time if it does not work like the video. Mind you, how many times have you been to mcdonalds and found your Big Mac looks nothing like the picture.
It's very impressive from a technological standpoint, the face/speech recognition is very clever and I'm quite surprised that they seem to have got the technology running as well as this (ironic really, considering they can't even design a decent d-pad!) My only gripe is that I think they've taken it a step too far by removing the physical interaction you get from using a pad. As much as I hate the Wii for over saturating the market with casual shovel-ware, Nintendo did get the control method spot-on. You've got motion control and traditional stick/button controls in a single unit. Natal on the other hand appears to be completely virtual. It's a great party trick being able to play a racing game using just your hands and feet, but would you seriously want to sit for a couple of hours with your arms raised in front of you, gripping a steering wheel that doesn't exist? Maybe that's my other problem...I don't think that this type of control method is designed to be used for hours on end. It's yet another product that will mainly appeal to the casual market of kids and grandparents wanting a quick gaming fix. I think I'll be sticking to a pad unless they manage to do something amazing with this system. Curse you Nintendo! What have you started?!
