You can believe in Microsoft's Project Natal
LOS ANGELES--About halfway through a closed-door demo I was in this afternoon of Microsoft's just-announced full-body motion-sensitive control system, Project Natal, another reporter told our host that he was skeptical of what he was seeing.
A minute later, after taking the virtual controls himself of the game "Burnout Paradise" and giving Natal a test, the reporter walked back over to where I was standing and when I asked him if he was still skeptical, he gave me a chastened look and said, "It's interesting."
In other words, he was won over.
Project Natal, as you probably know by now, was Microsoft's big announcement at its E3 press briefing here. It has gotten a lot of attention because of its promise to make it possible to incorporate all kinds of hands-free control into a wide variety of games: racing games, painting games, shooting games, sports games and so on.
(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)
But until now, I hadn't seen the technology close up. I was part of a small group that got the demonstration deep inside Microsoft's cavernous E3 booth. We were allowed to ask whatever we wanted, but we weren't able to take video or photos of the technology.
One thing that came out of the presentation: Tsunoda said unequivocally that the software behind Natal was developed entirely in-house at Microsoft. But he wouldn't address the question of where the hardware came from, or specifically, if it came from 3DV Systems, a company that has been working on this kind of technology, and which Microsoft recently acquired.
Having seen the 3DV technology a couple of years ago, I can say that what Microsoft is showing today is very much the same but with a much more user-friendly front end. In other words, I would bet that 3DV is the source of that hardware.
Here's my quick impression: Natal is for real, and it may well change the way people experience video games, as well as anything else that is run through an Xbox 360.
Tsunoda began our demonstration by explaining the problem Microsoft had set out to solve: To make the gaming experience fun for everyone, while not alienating the core Xbox 360 fans.
"The control system is simple," Tsunoda said of Natal. "People can just jump in and have fun. (But there's) an extra layer of fidelity for core gamers."
Project Natal (see video below) is designed to be a one-to-one avatar control system, Tsunoda said. Wherever you move your hands, your body or your legs, the system captures it and mirrors it on the screen and in whatever game you're playing. "No (other) controller in the world allows you to control your whole body," he said. "Every part of the body is in play."
One interesting thing that came up in the demo is that when a woman stepped up to use it, the system recognized she was female and represented her on-screen as a female avatar with long hair. Tsunoda said that ideally, Natal will recognize users and be able to grab their existing Xbox avatars, but that in such a demo environment, it simply represented her the best way it could, given what it could see of her skeletal structure.
Another interesting point was the way Natal recognizes people's skeletal structure and analyzes how we move. Tsunoda made the point that Natal will continue to work even if someone walks in front of a player because it knows how the human body works. So, if a player had his or her arms blocked, but Natal's cameras could still see part of their arm, it can fill in the rest based on algorithms that tell it how that arm should look.
And it's the software, Tsunoda said, that's the "magic" behind Natal, and that allows the technology to "extract the human skeleton."
Natal is designed to work whether someone is standing up or sitting down, and can recognize users very quickly. We saw that in action when, one-by-one, we were invited to step up and play either a kickball game or a driving game. With a couple of exceptions where the player didn't stand in the right place, Natal did seem to almost instantly recognize that a new person was playing and, then, respond to their movements.
This may have been most impressive during game play of the racing game, "Burnout Paradise," when it was clear that Natal was doing a fine job of translating the player's hand movements--mimicking holding and turning a steering wheel--into moving the car on-screen.
Tsunoda said the technology behind Natal includes an RGB camera, an infrared camea, a multi-array microphone and a depth map. These features allow the system to track a player in 3D space, as well as to capture spoken commands from multiple people, none of whom have to wear a headset.
Asked how Natal differs from the many other motion-control cameras that have come along over the years, Tsunoda simply said that nothing that has ever come along before has been able to instantly work when a new player steps up in front of it, or when the lighting conditions change, or when someone else steps in front of a player.
"Ours, you can play any way you want," he said. "This just works the way you want it to."
Clearly, Microsoft is banking heavily on software developers--who are just now getting development kits--being able to utilize Natal in their games in such a way that players don't have to do any kind of configuration or tinkering in order to get it to work. Absent that instant-workability, the system loses a lot of its allure. But Tsunoda was insistent that that is Natal's value proposition and that developers will have no trouble making it work that way in their games.
If that's true, then it would seem that Microsoft has a real winner on its hands. As I wrote Monday, any success depends, though, entirely on price point, and how users get their hands on it. But right now, having seen Natal close up, I have to say I'm a believer.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
Microsoft is onto something huge here which if done right could revolutionise the industry.
That face recognition biometrics technology that Natal uses to recognize faces and automatically log them on to the 360, would come in very handy for logging on to your PC, without putting in any passwords. I was even thinking of using it to control who can and can't enter your car/home.
Like the first poster said, technology like that could be used for a vast range of applications, not just for gaming.
In many ways this could be a step backward for gaming. Things might actually have to be dumbed down because there is no way other than moving around to interact with the machine. Oh, yes, there could be innovative new ways to do it, but, really, what's the difference between flailing your arms around and pressing a button?
As far as using the technology for other things, there is a lot better ways to go about it. How would a disabled person be able to use this device better than a button, or a remote, or a mini keyboard to help them in every day life? Once again, how would anyone be able to control a menu and select things? Physical therapy is probably the best field for this sort of thing. Password implementation is a neat idea, but suppose someone just holds up a photo of you? It still recognizes it and will pass you through.
I'm not saying that this technology is dumb, I'm just stating that it is not yet ready for consumer use. It needs to be more flushed out and I'm glad that Microsoft is taking it's time to release it. The way marker-less detection works is really complicated and people's living room space may actually interfere with how it adjusts. I believe in reality, those people the video are actually playing against a white background or with little amount of objects behind them.
I work with a company that is looking into Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality systems for educational purposes. Top researches and engineers at MIT and similar schools have barely just scratched the surface of what is really possible. You want truly impressive? Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg&feature=channel_page
I believe you're making the same assumption as a lot of people.. meaning you're assuming that you absolutely CAN'T use a controller with this feature. For a game like Gears (Top five games for me), You'll most likely have the standard 360 controller with a few motion features incorparated into the game (i.e grenades).
Makes you wonder if early medical detection of illness will come from a game controller? Will home MD for XBox be an available title? Wii will make you fit. XBox will save your life. Exciting.
Natal is very adventurous and if they can make it work this could be amazing.
No thanks.
I'm still skeptical on real world. Looking at the photo the demo environment was carefully controlled to get an easy read. I wonder what it will do with a human wearing a shirt with a human on it, or a human in a large picture on your back wall. Or a person with one arm or no arms or an arm that is disabled in some fashion. Or a room with no light on (common gamer), or a hazy room (smoke...) where the air born particulate gives a mess of depth readings. Will it know u when u come home drunk as, or get tricked by ur little brother holding up a photo of u, what if u grow a beard, or wear glasses. Will it confuse the family dog as a human on all fours when it comes in to say hello, jumping round the room, will the dogs tail give natal a seziure. How bout if the sensor pack gets bumped, fitted crooked, gets goo on it from sticky hands, someone puts a beer in front of it. How about reflections, in your mirrored shades, or if there is a mirror on the wall behind u or in it's field of view. Heck what about the classic teen wall covered in posters of people.
That's a few things that came to mind. Not including since your avatar can be puppeted, little tommy on Live getting humped by 3 "friends" as an act of pwnage.
I am a little under-whelmed now, the main MS dev dude was saying its true 1 to 1 full body control, but errr, its got a fair bit of lag actually and it didn't seem to even handle one person moving around. Even during the on stage demo the avatar was "clicking" or ending up in odd poses, clearly not what the user was doing 1:1.
It also reminds me even more of the old Amiga system, it was called Mandala I think, similar to EyeToy. With more smarts.
Hmm, maybe a year yet?
However, for things like browsing catalogues of content, virtual shopping and social games, I can see why NATAL (if it works) would be something very exciting indeed.
Natal's already been proved to work.
Comparing the decidedly low tech "eyetoy" to the bleeding edge Natal tecnology, is like comparing a helicopter to the Space Shuttle. They are not even on the same planet.
You wanna try that again?
In a controlled environment. Not in J. Random's living room. So for a very limited definition of "proved" you are right.
"Comparing the decidedly low tech "eyetoy" to the bleeding edge Natal tecnology, is like comparing a helicopter to the Space Shuttle. They are not even on the same planet. "
Correct: EyeToy Kinetic is actually OUT, you can buy it and use it. Natal currently is in a prototype stage with at least two years of development before a consumer-suited version can be launched. Before then, Sony probably will have the PS Eye-using "wand" out, which was demonstrated to have excellent precision.
So very different planets, indeed...
If this truly works to perfection, I can't see Nintendo/Sony/anyone competing, at least as far as motion games are concerned!
I want one of these so bad...
I mean, its totally cool. But the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is break a sweat, when what I really want to do is relax and play video games. If I wanted to break a sweat, or be active, id go shoot hoops or something.
Meh, maybe Im just not the target demographic?
How the heck does Natal stop you from relaxing and playing video games if you have a 360?
You can still play great games like Halo 3, Bioshock, CoD4 on your 360 using the normal 360 controllers, no?
You don't have to use Natal if you don't want to, and most "hardcore" 360 owners will continue to use their "normal" 360 controllers for years to come. Natal could initially be aimed at the "casual" , "non-gamer" crowd with games specially designed to use Nata, like fitness games, golf games, family etc.
You are not going to get Mordern Warfare 2 using Napal. It's gonna come with the normal 360 controller.
Lol.
"Having seen the 3DV technology a couple of years ago, I can say that what Microsoft is showing today is very much the same but with a much more user-friendly front end. In other words, I would bet that 3DV is the source of that hardware"
If you had put real money on that bet, you would have lost. Microsoft developped this inhouse.
From Eurogamer:
"Following the announcement at the platform holder's E3 conference on Monday, many assumed that Natal's technology and 3DV's (seen in late 2007 prior to the company's acquisition) were one and the same, but Kim told VentureBeat, "At Microsoft Research, we have had a lot of working going on for a long time."
His colleague Aaron Greenberg was even more direct. Asked whether Natal was derived from 3DV technology, he told Eurogamer: "No, we built this in house."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...rived-from-3dv
Even if there isnt a PC version, I'm sure someone will find a way to make it work.
Also, I still believe buttons are required for gaming. First person shooter games require a gun of some sort, so maybe they will develop a gun with a button to register with NATAL like Sony did with their eyetoy and motion controller, which would be cool.
However, I don't know if I'm sold on the new motion detector stuff. It feels like you are only limited by what you can do, and like critics said of the Wii-GO OUTSIDE AND DO IT!
- by NervClaX June 4, 2009 8:23 AM PDT
- The most important thing will be the games created with this new technology in mind. Camera tricks won't be able to cover up lousy games. It's the same reason many hardcore gamers are unsatisfied with the Wii. The games they're being offered just aren't compelling. Wii Music, anyone?
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