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Forums - Sales Discussion - Natal and Wand to reach beyond Wii says EA Europe's senior VP

Jumpin on 13 January 2010

The bottom line is this. There is a lot of hope attached to these devices. They want to do what Nintendo did this generation. These projects are their last hope to do so; if they fail, then they both fail this generation and their next big hope is in new systems, competing against a company with much larger name brand recognition in the field of videogames. This is their last hope.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

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Kenoid on 13 January 2010

Obviously it will own the Wii with no regrets =) Its about time we get something new.



                                  

                                       That's Gordon Freeman in "Real-Life"
 

 

JaggedSac on 13 January 2010
NJ5 said:
JaggedSac said:

The lack of finger detection is definitely a let down, but it is by no means the end of gaming possibilities.  Even if it did detect fingers, you would not be able to point at something on the screen directly.  Natal has no idea where the screen is, unless you begin the game by doing some sort of calibration such as "Here I am, here is my tv".  The way on screen control is going to be done via Natal is all relative to the body.  The distances your hands are from your body are translated to screen coordinates.  Pretty simple actually since Natal has the (x,y,z) position of your entire body.  Plus, this gives allows for direct manipulation of on-screen items in 3 dimensions.  Move your hand forward and the on-screen indication moves forward as well, by getting smaller.  I really don't see how you can judge any accuracy from anything we have seen so far.

Obviously calibration relative to the screen would be needed, that would be the easy part.

Didn't they say the other day that accuracy was about 4 cm? What we saw in terms of accuracy was that "Paint Party" demo, which looked more like throwing buckets at the wall than actual painting.

I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, it's because MS has done a piss poor job of showing Natal's capabilities.

 

I find telling Natal everytime I play where the tv is to be a pain in the ass. 

I would MUCH rather have relative positioning used.  It would make more sense to me.  As for accuracy, the people playing the driving game demonstration said Natal could read small movements.

 



NJ5 on 13 January 2010
JaggedSac said:
NJ5 said:
JaggedSac said:

The lack of finger detection is definitely a let down, but it is by no means the end of gaming possibilities.  Even if it did detect fingers, you would not be able to point at something on the screen directly.  Natal has no idea where the screen is, unless you begin the game by doing some sort of calibration such as "Here I am, here is my tv".  The way on screen control is going to be done via Natal is all relative to the body.  The distances your hands are from your body are translated to screen coordinates.  Pretty simple actually since Natal has the (x,y,z) position of your entire body.  Plus, this gives allows for direct manipulation of on-screen items in 3 dimensions.  Move your hand forward and the on-screen indication moves forward as well, by getting smaller.  I really don't see how you can judge any accuracy from anything we have seen so far.

Obviously calibration relative to the screen would be needed, that would be the easy part.

Didn't they say the other day that accuracy was about 4 cm? What we saw in terms of accuracy was that "Paint Party" demo, which looked more like throwing buckets at the wall than actual painting.

I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, it's because MS has done a piss poor job of showing Natal's capabilities.

 

I find telling Natal everytime I play where the tv is to be a pain in the ass.  It actually would not be ass easy as you say.  Natal would need to know the edges of the screen, and how big the screen was.  You could not just point and say here are the edges because Natal will not know how far back from it the tv is.

I would MUCH rather have relative positioning used.  It would make more sense to me.  As for accuracy, the people playing the driving game demonstration said Natal could read small movements.


You just need to point at the two corners of the screen... and it's done. Some on-rail shooter Wii games do that for calibration.

Actually you don't even need to use the corners. All that Natal needs to know is the distance between pixels. It could just paint two targets next to each other in the screen, and work out the distance between pixels from that.

 



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dumbo on 13 January 2010

IMHO:

- Natal is going to be 'big' for fitness games, and party games. Outside that, I can't help thinking that it's a terrible control scheme for "hardcore" games (accuracy is terrible - 4cm at each end of a bone? do the maths... ouchies). Expect to see 'EA sports active+ 360, 2010 edition', "bowl-a-rama",'jump-around-like-an-idiot', 'pop-music-with-dance-thingy-star' and 'soccer-thats-so-realistic-we-can't-bend-it-like-beckham'. I wouldn't expect to see 'gears of war: natal', I would expect lawsuits over 'omg - I kicked the cat out the window'.

The ice cream cone is just a (cheaper?) motion+ with a bit more motion/position information being passed to the game. The accuracy *might* be enough for a 'hardcore' game. Expect to see 'Wii bowling PS3', 'jedi-something-or-other', 'cliche-fps-swinging-sword','EA sports-just-as-bad-as-the-wii-version 2010'. I'm not convinced that it would work very well for a gun-FPS, so "killzone: ice-cream edition" is probably not going to happen. Expect 9 million obscure attachments that each cost the low, low price of $49.99.

That's my view anyway...



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JaggedSac on 13 January 2010
NJ5 said:


You just need to point at the two corners of the screen... and it's done. Some on-rail shooter Wii games do that for calibration.

Actually you don't even need to use the corners. All that Natal needs to know is the distance between pixels. It could just paint two targets next to each other in the screen, and work out the distance between pixels from that.

 

Yeah, I actually stealth edited before you posted.  Then pointing can be done.  It will just be done via your arm.  I would not care for that method, I would much rather have a relative method.



Alterego-X on 13 January 2010

Which part of "software sells hardware" is that hard to understand?



mike_intellivision on 13 January 2010
Galaki said:
mike_intellivision said:
just based upon history.

What we learned from history is that we don't learn from history.

And those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Mike from Morgantown



      


I am Mario.


I like to jump around, and would lead a fairly serene and aimless existence if it weren't for my friends always getting into trouble. I love to help out, even when it puts me at risk. I seem to make friends with people who just can't stay out of trouble.

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nitekrawler1285 on 13 January 2010
JaggedSac said:
nitekrawler1285 said:
JaggedSac said:
People seem to be very limited in their vision. Regular games will not be going anywhere on the 360. Reach will still be a controller experience and will be kick ass. Natal is only something that is ADDING to the 360 consumer's experience. It isn't taking away anything. Not currently anyway. The only way it would take away from the regular controller experiences on the 360 is if it was incredibly successful. And if it becomes successful enough to alter development trends for the system, then that means people are wanting it. I truthfully do not understand the resentment towards the hardware. It will be there for people wanting it, and it will not be there for people who do not want it. Simple. Not sure why having more shit available to you is a bad thing.

If you would like to see some ideas for Natal(which, judging by my thread's post count, there aren't many interested in passing ideas around, only passing FUD) here is a thread with some ideas I had: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=90211&page=1

The hardware IS coming, perhaps it would be more fruitful to discuss what IS possible on the system. Why try to shoehorn current genres onto the system. Trying to play tennis with a baseball bat is not a good idea.

Cause we aren't paid to come up with the idea for mario. We pay to play it.  If they want us to believe they may wanna show us something to get us interested as most people don't care about the technical side of the experience anyway.

 

Going further where most games today are  popular gameplay mechanic A in popular setting Z = new game I think that developers nowadays are limited in vision.  If you wanna walk around with you head in the clouds that's fine but if current development trends aren't ignored Natal just isn't going to have compelling software.  I would let them SHOW me otherwise but they seem to wanna do everything but that.  

 

 

So before MS shows any games that they are releasing for it, people should bitch about the fact that no games will work on it and the games that do, will be shovelware?

They have shown us a peripheral that has issues so far. Burnout Lite is the best they have shown.  Riccochet the second best example they have shown seems to be kinda laggy and strange with jackets.   Other than that we have avatar spasms, half life and geometry wars spasms.  This is the kinda stuff you would think should build anti hype. And based in what we thought the Wii was capable of and we got you should be pessimistic too.  These aren't new developers.  They are the same ones who have been putting out mostly crap with the 3 years they have had to learn and improve upon that brand new control option.  You expect them to just get it now?  

I think this technology is amazing.  Especially for OS and media control.  For games however they have not shown anything to be excited for.  When they do I will be excited. I'm tired of being made out as some villain because they have shown crap and half for games so far.  



kopstudent89 on 13 January 2010

EA is a very weird company. They just seem lost. I myself dont see the wand succeeding in any way, natal on the other hadn is gonna be a hit or miss, much like the Wii itself.