Microsoft: Project Natal Can Support Multiple Players, See Fingers

By Stephen Totilo

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Earlier this week Microsoft let me try Project Natal in a hotel suite where test-versions of the new gaming sensor array was set up. Three times, I thought I found a flaw in the systems.

I thought the system, as impressive as it was in letting me play kickball with virtual balls on a TV and no controllers on my body, might not be able to handle multi-player gaming.

Wrong, the project's director, Kudo Tsunoda told me. He had me look at a special display set up as part of the ball-ricocheting demo. What I saw proved how clearly Natal was easily reading both my body and his as we both stood in front of the sensors. We appeared on screen as simplified, mutli-jointed stick figure skeletons within silhouettes of our bodies. It clearly saw us as separate people. There would be no problem, he said, for the system to support a game that let us play at the same time and track our movements separately.

I thought Project Natal might be good for reading big body movements but not for finer finger movements.

Theoretically, I got that wrong too, Tsunoda told me, though he didn't have a way to prove it to me there. The stick-figure skeletons that Natal recognize us as did not have fingers. Each one had a short stick for each hand. I saw no fingers, so I assumed it could not see my fingers. There seemed to be no way for Natal to know, say, how many fingers I was holding up. If it could, then it could maybe read hand signs issued to squadmates in military first-person shooters. I questioned Natal's ability to detect those finer movements. Tsunoda said that such detection was possible, though the sensitivity would be different at different distances. He thought my fingers idea was do-able.

I thought that the Natal could be fooled to let me drive Burnout Paradise one-handed.

Wrong, for sure. Microsoft had EA's Burnout Paradise programed to work with Natal. As I stood in front of the sensors, I moved my right foot forward to accelerate, and moved it back to decelerate and reverse. I held my hands in front of me, pretending to turn a steering wheel. The Natal had registered me in under a second and was letting me control Burnout smoothly. I saw, in another monitor, how it read my stick-figure skeleton. I guessed that it was reading my hands as a single unit moving in space and that it wouldn't be programmed to know or care if I put one hand behind my back. It did. When I put my hand behind my back and just waved one hand in front of the TV, the Burnout car failed to steer. The Natal needed to see two hands. Maybe it's cooler to drive one-handed, but Natal not letting me do it was impressive in its own way.

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.

With Project Natal not due for release at least until next year, we'll all have plenty of time to question every aspect of Natal. The strong showing the system had in its first week in public suggests that it may withstand the skepticism. So far, it's fun. And it works.

"Maybe it's cooler to drive one-handed, but Natal not letting me do it was impressive in its own way."

Wow, some people can find a silver lining in everything.

OT: it was pretty obvious that Natal would be able to handle more than one player, limited by computing power of course. Of course in games with lots of movement you need to have a lot of space for two people to play, which would be a problem where I play games. I suppose you can't put one person in front of another, so no way I would have space for even two players.

To me, this is the key phrase:

Microsoft had EA's Burnout Paradise programed to work with Natal.

This technology sounds wonderful ... but who will be doing all the software translation? Someone will have to pay for the patches.

Mike from Morgantown

No one has said that games were going to be backwards compatible.  This was just an easy example to show people.

Of course it can read individual fingers and of course it can detect multiple people.  There is an onboard chip that handles all depth processing so it should not affect performance with more people.

In the E3 video it showed a family playing a quiz, and Natal knew who buzzed in. That's multi player already confirmed, so what's the big fuss?

That was surely just a concept video, though.

It was a concept video, but there was no reason to doubt that the tech could do multi player tracking, was there?

Just like there are people that can't find a silver lining in anything.

How much space would you really need for two people?  Is it really not possible to get two people to stand in from of your tv side by side with 2-3 feet sparating them?  Do you play videogames in your closet?

I live in a quite small place right now. I can't picture two people with their arms open and a safe distance between them in front of my TV.

You need not worry about spending money on videogames then.  Perhaps upgrade your living arrangements.  Unless you live in an urban environment, in which case...sucks for you.