Sony Explains why it passed on NATAL TECH

[Squilliam]

justinian said:

Squilliam said:

Neither Sony nor Nintendo have the same level of investment and pure research that Microsoft has in this field. What they saw of the physical technology behind Natal isn't actually the Natal that Microsoft was developing. They bought 3DV for the technology, patents and some software but they added it to work which was already underway in their research and development labs. Microsofts technology here for 3D gesture recognition is ahead of anything in the academic or comercial fields. What Sony says about Natal is pretty irrelevant they would trash talk it still if it was about the best interface ever developed.

Sony, one of the major camera manufacturers in the world don't have the investment and pure research to build a camera and write the software for this camera. Sony 3D cameras already have the world cup sown up so this must know something.

Jeez, how many cameras - still or video - and software for a camera have MS built? Yeah their webcams.

Sony have built millions of digital, bridge, SLR and video - and written the software for them.

Let's face it, that is what natal comes down to, a type of camera and the software, nothing more, nothing less. Period.

Comapnies like Reactrix Systems and GestureTek, along with the mentioned Israeli company 3DV Systems (now MS) have been at this whole thing for a while and depending on who you listen to any could be better than the other in regards to what they have up their sleeves.

I am not saying natal is crap, I look forward to seeing what it can do but because Nintendo and Sony turned it down doesn't mean they don't have the resources. Maybe they honestly thought it wasn't worth it.

If MS had turned it down (and sony hadn't) that would have made natal rubbish in your eyes, because your god didn't want it. Pathetic.

 

Its all about the voice recognition and gesture recognition software and Microsoft are ahead of the game for gesture recognition and one behind the best in voice recognition as far as im aware. Natal is the fruits of an unrelated research and development program for a PC interface which was ongoing since before this console generation even started. So what they brought to the table when considering whether or not the technology was viable was completely different to Sony and Nintendo who opted for more a hardware based solution. Microsoft has plenty of innovative technology they have developed but so far they failed to find good applications for it, and Natal is one such good application.