Microsoft: Motion Is the New Multiplayer

By Brian Crecente, 11:00 AM on Fri Oct 2 2009, 1,325 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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While Project Natal, and its ability to allow Xbox 360 gamers to play video games completely free of a controller, will launch as a niche of sorts on the platform, Microsoft believes it will one day become the norm.

Motion control, Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president Phil Spencer told Kotaku, will change what gamers expect from games.

"Much like with multiplayer, I think it will become the norm," Spencer said. "If you are a racing game without multiplayer the game just didn't sell.

"We think that motion control, we think voice recognition, should become a part of gaming as well."

But Spencer points out that it's important not to shoehorn every franchise into the new tech. Microsoft Game Studios and the Xbox 360 don't plan to bring every single experience to Project Natal, at least not initially.

"Hacked in or quick to market ideas are not what we're looking for," he said. "We want to make sure that those experiences are world class."

Spencer says he's been surprised by how quickly and how strongly the outside development community has reacted to Microsoft's E3 unveiling of the motion controls.

"In the three months that Natal has been out the amount of support we have been able to gain has been impressive," he said. Indeed, during the Tokyo Game Show Microsoft rounded up Konami's Hideo Kojima, Capcom's Keiji Inafune and Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi to et on stage and chat about the potential they see in the hardware.

"When you are starting something new it is important to get some creative talent to innovate," Spenser said. "The quality of the experience is going to be what defines it."

When Microsoft first decided to work on Project Natal the company shipped out development kits to all of their internal studios as a way of incubating different ideas, Spencer said. The result was a lot of interest and some new games.

What about Bungie or an internally developed Halo game, I asked.

"We're not going to hack something into Halo to get it to support Natal," he said. "We want to make sure we can only offer rich experiences."

But given the richness, the breadth of Halo's universe, it wouldn't be surprising if something came to Natal from it.

"We have great people helping out to evolve Halo," he said.

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http://kotaku.com/5373031/microsoft-motion-is-the-new-multiplayer

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they have some good ideas......I'd like to see how a halo game could work TBH.

Do you agree with this bold statement? or do yout hink Nintendo relised this LONG before?

So Halo: Natal will recognize hand gestures in the shape of a pistol, and listen for you to say "pow pow!" or "zap!" to recognize when you fire?

That will be awesome to see. Awesome in a really funny way, I mean. Shooter games will become much more entertaining and light hearted.

Casual Halo... hmm.

I read it as traditional controllers until we can make Project Natal work to our satisfaction.

It may be splitting hairs. But the tone of this confirms everything that I see -- that Microsoft, for better or for worse, would love to only have motion control.

If that is the case, I wonder what the reaction of the typical Xbox 360 player will be -- often the same person who has been dismissive of motion control as "wagglefest."

Mike from Morgantown

There are other potential as well. One of the ways that Natal can really shine is being used in conjunction with traditional controllers.
For example a quick hand motion to reload your weapon. Or maybe a twist of the wrist to throw something or open a door, while you keep on using the regular controller.

That's true, Halo Wars could actually benefit a lot from that kind of interface.  I forgot that Halo had moved beyond the realm of the FPS.

They aren't going to be able to combine the two interfaces.  The idea is that its a control-less interface, not an augmentation.

I know bungie said they MIGHT put some Natal features in Halo:Reach. Personnaly I was hopin for the same controls as Halo 3 but maybe a feature where if you jerk your body left/right your charater rolls in that direction as a way to dodge bullets/wehicles.

i'm no fan of halo but if halo:natal supports teabagging it's a day 1 purchase for me. xD

That's funny, because I was thinking the same thing.

That kind of humorous interface actually *would* get me to buy it.

So..... the information that they actually gave was.

"We have some Ideas, and some game developers have been chatting about it"