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Forums - Microsoft - Kikizo - Natal: Why it's a Bigger Thing Than Critics Think

Shadowblind on 12 June 2009

Damn, a lot of people had their panties really knotted by this article. Practically the whole first page, haven't seen the other 2 yet. Well anyway,  he could have been less absolute about his stance that Natal "is indeed the future", but he seems very confident in what its abilities will be by launch.



GOTY Contestants this year: Dead Space 2, Dark Souls, Tales of Graces f. Everything else can suck it.

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JaggedSac on 12 June 2009
NJ5 said:
Jereel Hunter said:

What? Sounds like someone hasn't read the article, or any of the articles of people who have had hands on demos of the technology. It's very good at discerning finite movement, just the software to take advantage of the input is in its infancy.

Actually those articles are just speculating, as it has been confirmed that most of the processing happens in the Natal peripheral, and the games will just have to receive the data on the body's position.

 

There is software that is running inside Natal.  That is what they are referring to.



nitekrawler1285 on 12 June 2009
Darth Tigris said:

Every single Natal thread brings out the haters in force.  Seriously, if you guys think its so lame or undeserving of any hype, why do you continue to talk about it so much?  Do you feel its your personal mission in life to counter any and all positive information that comes out about this thing you personally have never used?

Anyway, this was a decent read.  Adam attempted to counter a lot of the negativity with his OWN hands on experiences and insight, but its a fools errand.  The people that vehemently dislike Natal now will dislike it even if it cured cancer.  But Adam recognized its POTENTIAL, and that's where the gaming industry needs to grow.  The next gen having even more realistic graphics just won't cut it.  Its not enough.  The experience has to be enriched, expanded and refined.  Project Natal is one of the R&D concepts that reaches out to do that.

His comment about Miyamoto was very nice.  The man is in a very difficult position.  He can't really publicly talk up this product because of his prominent role with Nintendo, but Adam caught him at a vunerable moment.  And those are typically honest moments.  Miyamoto is such an excitable gaming mind that I can only imagine that he had a ton of ideas come to his head on what he could do with such a technology.  "Wii Music could've been this and that with that tech!" or something even more revolutionary.  I can't imagine the TRUE gaming minds in the industry not appreciating the ambition of this project.

Lastly, Adam must've read comments I've made elsewhere ( ), because this hit me while watching James Cameron talk about Avatar at the Ubi conference:

I will end by saying that the first person to figure out how to successfully combine Natal technology with one of the other hot prospects I checked out last week, 3D, could be on to something really quite remarkable.

And he is sooooooooo right.  Natal tech + 3-D tech will TRULY be a major step forward in gaming immersion.  Good God can you imagine the types of experiences we could have?  Only a fanboy wouldn't get excited about that.

If PS3 and Wii fans from this site teach you nothing let it be not to hype potential. Hype what you actually have. No one knows wether or ought these titles or peripherals will live up to their potential but NATAL hasn't shown us much to get hyped about yet.  When they show us being able to controller free play more core games and a non-core game that looks fun we should get hyped. But buggy breakout and avatar spasms and limited burnout shouldn't have anyone jumping for joy.  

I appreciate people trying to move gaming forward.  I just wait for software that looks appealing before I start hyping stuff. Seeing how Microsoft hasn't ever relased any software that i'm going gaga for(except maybe I.E. and Word in their early days) please forgive me for being a "naysayer".  

If you wanna discuss how a $400-500 laptop with a NATAL webcam could put apple out of business then i'd be there with you.  Touch, and mothion and voice work great for media organization...very few have sold me on the games including them though. 



nojustno on 12 June 2009

Funny that when something new and advanced comes along most people here just hate on it and barely talk about how much fun it could be. Thank god forums don't represent reality.




JGarret on 12 June 2009
nojustno said:
Funny that when something new and advanced comes along most people here just hate on it and barely talk about how much fun it could be. Thank god forums don't represent reality.


That may be because in its current form, Natal would be a bitch to play most traditional games....till MS shows how people are supposed to comfortably play FPSs, action/adventure, etc with Natal...the hate won´t stop.



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Darth Tigris on 12 June 2009
nitekrawler1285 said:
Darth Tigris said:

Every single Natal thread brings out the haters in force.  Seriously, if you guys think its so lame or undeserving of any hype, why do you continue to talk about it so much?  Do you feel its your personal mission in life to counter any and all positive information that comes out about this thing you personally have never used?

Anyway, this was a decent read.  Adam attempted to counter a lot of the negativity with his OWN hands on experiences and insight, but its a fools errand.  The people that vehemently dislike Natal now will dislike it even if it cured cancer.  But Adam recognized its POTENTIAL, and that's where the gaming industry needs to grow.  The next gen having even more realistic graphics just won't cut it.  Its not enough.  The experience has to be enriched, expanded and refined.  Project Natal is one of the R&D concepts that reaches out to do that.

His comment about Miyamoto was very nice.  The man is in a very difficult position.  He can't really publicly talk up this product because of his prominent role with Nintendo, but Adam caught him at a vunerable moment.  And those are typically honest moments.  Miyamoto is such an excitable gaming mind that I can only imagine that he had a ton of ideas come to his head on what he could do with such a technology.  "Wii Music could've been this and that with that tech!" or something even more revolutionary.  I can't imagine the TRUE gaming minds in the industry not appreciating the ambition of this project.

Lastly, Adam must've read comments I've made elsewhere ( ), because this hit me while watching James Cameron talk about Avatar at the Ubi conference:

I will end by saying that the first person to figure out how to successfully combine Natal technology with one of the other hot prospects I checked out last week, 3D, could be on to something really quite remarkable.

And he is sooooooooo right.  Natal tech + 3-D tech will TRULY be a major step forward in gaming immersion.  Good God can you imagine the types of experiences we could have?  Only a fanboy wouldn't get excited about that.

If PS3 and Wii fans from this site teach you nothing let it be not to hype potential. Hype what you actually have. No one knows wether or ought these titles or peripherals will live up to their potential but NATAL hasn't shown us much to get hyped about yet.  When they show us being able to controller free play more core games and a non-core game that looks fun we should get hyped. But buggy breakout and avatar spasms and limited burnout shouldn't have anyone jumping for joy.  

I appreciate people trying to move gaming forward.  I just wait for software that looks appealing before I start hyping stuff. Seeing how Microsoft hasn't ever relased any software that i'm going gaga for(except maybe I.E. and Word in their early days) please forgive me for being a "naysayer".  

If you wanna discuss how a $400-500 laptop with a NATAL webcam could put apple out of business then i'd be there with you.  Touch, and mothion and voice work great for media organization...very few have sold me on the games including them though. 

So we shouldn't get excited about any new technology and its potential?  That doesn't sound like a very fun gaming community to me ...



ironman on 12 June 2009
Staude said:
stof said:
I just don't get all the Natal excitement... I loved the unveil and I know there are some neat things you can do with it. But I have to say that more often than not it will just be a supplemental option on games.

I may just be missing some of the important information? Aside from face recognition and a microphone, what exactly does it do that the PSeye doesn't?

Coincidentially the ps eye has 4 point microphone with voice recognition, the camera has facial recognition and headtracking. I don't get why so many people don't know this.

 

 

The microphone is clearly visible too :p

It's quite simple, PS eye is not as accurate due to it not being 3D, doesn't have the development behind it, and it doesn't have the software.



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nitekrawler1285 on 12 June 2009
Darth Tigris said:
nitekrawler1285 said:
Darth Tigris said:

Every single Natal thread brings out the haters in force.  Seriously, if you guys think its so lame or undeserving of any hype, why do you continue to talk about it so much?  Do you feel its your personal mission in life to counter any and all positive information that comes out about this thing you personally have never used?

Anyway, this was a decent read.  Adam attempted to counter a lot of the negativity with his OWN hands on experiences and insight, but its a fools errand.  The people that vehemently dislike Natal now will dislike it even if it cured cancer.  But Adam recognized its POTENTIAL, and that's where the gaming industry needs to grow.  The next gen having even more realistic graphics just won't cut it.  Its not enough.  The experience has to be enriched, expanded and refined.  Project Natal is one of the R&D concepts that reaches out to do that.

His comment about Miyamoto was very nice.  The man is in a very difficult position.  He can't really publicly talk up this product because of his prominent role with Nintendo, but Adam caught him at a vunerable moment.  And those are typically honest moments.  Miyamoto is such an excitable gaming mind that I can only imagine that he had a ton of ideas come to his head on what he could do with such a technology.  "Wii Music could've been this and that with that tech!" or something even more revolutionary.  I can't imagine the TRUE gaming minds in the industry not appreciating the ambition of this project.

Lastly, Adam must've read comments I've made elsewhere ( ), because this hit me while watching James Cameron talk about Avatar at the Ubi conference:

I will end by saying that the first person to figure out how to successfully combine Natal technology with one of the other hot prospects I checked out last week, 3D, could be on to something really quite remarkable.

And he is sooooooooo right.  Natal tech + 3-D tech will TRULY be a major step forward in gaming immersion.  Good God can you imagine the types of experiences we could have?  Only a fanboy wouldn't get excited about that.

If PS3 and Wii fans from this site teach you nothing let it be not to hype potential. Hype what you actually have. No one knows wether or ought these titles or peripherals will live up to their potential but NATAL hasn't shown us much to get hyped about yet.  When they show us being able to controller free play more core games and a non-core game that looks fun we should get hyped. But buggy breakout and avatar spasms and limited burnout shouldn't have anyone jumping for joy.  

I appreciate people trying to move gaming forward.  I just wait for software that looks appealing before I start hyping stuff. Seeing how Microsoft hasn't ever relased any software that i'm going gaga for(except maybe I.E. and Word in their early days) please forgive me for being a "naysayer".  

If you wanna discuss how a $400-500 laptop with a NATAL webcam could put apple out of business then i'd be there with you.  Touch, and mothion and voice work great for media organization...very few have sold me on the games including them though. 

So we shouldn't get excited about any new technology and its potential?  That doesn't sound like a very fun gaming community to me ...

I'm having fun playing some actually relesed games in the meanwhile and once they have more than a Nin/Apple rip off commerical and minigames that bug I might get that way.  It wont be the first time a videogame company has lied about how much they will accomplish.  Once they have some real software to show me how cool it is or at least tech demo's that work correctly. I don't think that's an unreasonable position.



richardhutnik on 12 June 2009

New controls end up being relevant, if they are a superior way to play a game. If NATAL is a superior universal answer, then NATAL will be relevant, providing they also hit the right price point.



daroamer on 12 June 2009
Staude said:
stof said:
I just don't get all the Natal excitement... I loved the unveil and I know there are some neat things you can do with it. But I have to say that more often than not it will just be a supplemental option on games.

I may just be missing some of the important information? Aside from face recognition and a microphone, what exactly does it do that the PSeye doesn't?

Coincidentially the ps eye has 4 point microphone with voice recognition, the camera has facial recognition and headtracking. I don't get why so many people don't know this.

 

 

The microphone is clearly visible too :p

People don't know it because it's not true.  Being able to see your face and know who you are and read your expression is facial recognition, knowing you HAVE a head and being able to follow it is not!  Having a microphone is not voice recognition, being able to understand what you are saying IS.  I use my headset to control windows with my voice, that does NOT mean my headset has voice recognition, WINDOWS does. 

Natal is using the voice recognition technology developed by Microsoft for Windows built in.  If a developer wanted to use voice commands they just have to acces Natal, they don't have to develope their own voice recognition software.   The same goes for the facial recognition tech, it's already in Natal. 

This is about the backend software and technology, not about a camera and a microphone.