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[abstract alien]

This will be awesome for some survival horror...all of the playable characters cant do anything anyway, especially in silent hill.

 

[Haunted]

At any rate, more motion control was inevitable. I think competition is good if nothing else.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

 

[Shadow780]

This is the one that ships with every future 360s?

 

[J-Rock]

I'd like to see a stage picture for that:

:lol We seriously need some gifs. BAM!

I'm just not impressed from a gaming standpoint. Tech wise it seems cool but so was the eyetoy.

EYETOY VID

So we've seen this sort of stuff before and it never really caught on. I dunno...maybe MS will create some cool stuff for it. We'll see.

 

[soujiro_seta]

http://www.justin.tv/jaded

it's being discussed now....

 

[INTERNET]

No way it's $200 standalone, Mattrick said they're bundling it with the console in the future.

For what it's worth Brier Dudley is really casual about making really bad predictions.

 

[JonathanEx]

It'll probably sink at first in the market, but it is technically emezzin'.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

According to a Seattle Times blog entry

"Prices and timing weren't available, but it won't be available until 2010 at the earliest and will probably cost around $200. Microsoft has already given game developers tools to start building games that uses the device."

SMFHUIFO. Shake my fuckin head until it falls off. MS, don't do it. You can't send it out to die. Don't do it.

Here's a post I'm sure will get lost in the main MS E3 thread:

I must say, I'm impressed. They had some games we figured where coming. Now, they dropped the bomb with this bar. I'm mostly excited about the possiblities with this bar. Will it be accurate enough to function in real gameplay areas.

A few things: He said you won't have pre-defined waggle but I don't see how a company could make a game with out predefined waggle, not based on animations. If you don't have animations, this thing better be accurate as hell. Or smooth as hell. We saw that one spot where they linked up for the elephant where the chick was flickering in and out. Talke about slowdown or drop in framerate. Add this to live?

Or you have to come up with a ton of different animations. Would that make it funner? It would be cool to play fighting games with this. Imagine Soul Calibur where you have a free range mode. But without canned animations, how do they determine hits, damage, etc? Or do they base it off of force or speed of waggle? Can it do that from so far away?

Imagine swinging a sword against someone at home? That'll get tiring. I hate that excuse but comparing this to wii: you can greatly exaggerate your waggle or flick your wrist. I'm not sure what is better. If he wants to move away from predefined waggle, will it still identify a flick of the wrist?

There are a ton of questions with this. It's very intriguing. Now after the experience with Wii, I would be hesitant to take their claims at face value until we see more hands on experience.

Either way, Great job, MS. Clearly, they have changed my ideas on them innovating. I guess they are following the leader.

Yrros yons.

 

[Haunted]

oh wow this'll get a lot of play :lol

 

[tiong_fi]

Talk about a game changer.

Just imagine the possibilities. This thing is a revolutionary piece of hardware. Everything that the Wii was supposed to be.

 

[a.wd]

Well Im not all about the waggle, but my girlfriend is. Plus moving through menus using your hands is cool as fuck....

 

[Gilgamesh]

Milo is just... there's something wrong with it. There's no way it works as advertised and if it does, the whole concept is rife of child pornography. If he can recognize whatever is being shown, what would Milo do when presented with something vile like that? Or does he only work when presented with a certain group of commands and responses that he is supposed to receive, as I suspect?

 

[Supervlieg]

day 2!

 

[TheKingsCrown]

Microsoft wins the fucking generation. That is crazy impressive. I mean, compare those tech demos to the Wii tech demos and then extrapolate from there. The stuff you can do with just your hands. Trauma Center on Xbox Live Arcade? That Sega table tapping game? Alan Wake 2 with hand based exploration... opening a menu by saying MENU. Holy shit

No, no they don't win anything. Maybe in your mind they are doing something really cool and you like where its going. But the business world is not your mind. To look at this in a vacuum is really quite unwise. Additionally, why in gods name would they fragment their userbase?

What are you people smoking?

 

[Ephemeris]

Pretty impressive.

 

[Ponn]

I find it interesting, I'm not sure it will work for everything, like motion capture on Wii. Golf, swordfighting and such are possibilities. It's indeed an interesting testbed for new ideas.

Still my main interest in the Wiimote remains the IR pointer (and gestures/inclination to replace button press). I find the tech rather eyetoy-kind than wiimote-kind (and I've never been fond of eyetoy), even if the difference in tech seems to be huge.

Just an aside, but I think it was 3 years ago now when the Wii was first unveiled and I had the audacity back then to question it one of things I brought up was that it was close to the handheld Gyration mice/pointers that we had at work and I commented how much I hated those and the precision they had. I was gang-raped by many rabid Nin-fanboys that day screaming at me that it was definitely not a pointing device.

Years later, thats the excuse being floated around that seperates it from the Natal. Funny thing life on a message board is. :lol :lol

 

[Fina1e]

Nintendo's conference tomorrow is going to seem so dull after seeing this.

 

[Metaphoreus]

it will definitely have some apps that will rival even the stupidest wii stupidity, so I see mainstream appeal

I don't. Again, you're talking about something that costs ~$400 or more to get into. And who would want to get into it? Those who are already interested in a 360, primarily. This adds functionality to what is already there, and if what's there doesn't interest the "stupid" "mainstream," then it won't matter how cool the interface is. Assuming a price of $200, I see this selling to a relatively small group.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

So on PS3 we get creepy interactive freak of nature, on 360 we get creepy interactive little english boy.

WHO WINS THE CREEP WARS?!

 

[GamePnoy74]

I'm expecting Project Natal's presentation at TGS will be a full-on blitz of all kinds of dating sims :lol

Seriously, it's a really neat new interface though, hopefully developers can maximize its full potential in the coming years.

 

[RubxQub]

Well Im not all about the waggle, but my girlfriend is. Plus moving through menus using your hands is cool as fuck....

You know why moving through menus with your hands is cool as fuck? Because it's supposed to be more efficient.

Tom Cruise in Minority Report wasn't constantly repeating the same hand motion to navigate around in a menu, he was picking things up and dragging them around.

"This isn't waggle where you do gestures to execute predefined motions"

...well in this case it's exactly that, and it didn't even look very useful.

 

[Fun Factor]

:lol :lol :lol at all the raging Wii fans.

 

[doicare]

If project natal or wii motion controls are the future of gaming that replaces traditional controllers then i quit gaming.

 

[sentry65]

uh, so why would I spend $200 on this that'll play maybe a few games vs just buying a wii that'll at least likely play more decent games than it will have.

It's like the Sega CD add-on vs just getting an SNES

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

As cool as it looks, this device doesnt really matter in the big equation (game wise) until it is packed in with every console. That would explain why they purposefully said it would be compatible with every xbox in the future.

 

[Shiggy]

How shall you play an action game? Walk on the spot?
I also assume that directing the menu with your hand becomes rather annoying after some time.

 

[bdouble]

That's pretty much the gist of it.

Anyone that didn't think new input and motion controls were the future after seeing the Wii and its success are crazy. Accelerometers, cameras, infared and whatever else they can think of are all being considered seriously now. This is just another step on the long road ahead. Who knows how successful it will be.

 

[jvalioli]

Someone clarify for me:

They are planning on bundling this in the future correct? But if that article is correct and Natal is expensive, are they planning raising the price for this bundle?

 

[Insertia]

F**KING IMPRESSIVE.

Like I said in the conference thread, Nintendo has to be shitting their pants.
This really puts the functionality of Wii to shame. It's what I expected from Wii 2.

 

[Busaiku]

Can't wait for this.
It sounds pretty amazing.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

No way it's $200 standalone, Mattrick said they're bundling it with the console in the future.

Logic move. But with how many games will it useful? That's the problem, since every announced game right now will not use it. It looks like exactly like the PS3 controller, whose capacities have never been properly used.

I doubt this thing will change the market, since it's not THE standard for every game on the system. I insist on this point.

And fanboys thinking that it will just be a revolution: I thought that you weren't interested in motion sensing things. And now that Microsoft is bringing this, are you excited? LOL.

 

[Yackie]

But will it actually work?

 

[VAIL]

If project natal or wii motion controls are the future of gaming that replaces traditional controllers then i quit gaming.

Knock over a magazine rack on your way out...this tech is neat in "demo" from but it'll be at least a year or two before anything meaningful will come from it, and by that point, we are gearing up for the next batch of consoles...they should have held off.

 

[jts]

:lol

Full body waggle? It's over now, Wii am d00med! :lol

 

[Haunted]

If project natal or wii motion controls are the future of gaming that replaces traditional controllers then i quit gaming.

quoted for posterity

 

[Caesar III]

for all the shooter lovers out there.

don't think about letting go your controller.

Just think about an enhancement instead. Like, let's say, you are careful in a game and a character comes to you looking right to your eyes (whereever you sit in your room in that very moment) and say something like "it's all ok, we can do it".

This tech could bring you TrackIR to xbox as well. Never use your right analog stick and autoaiming again but using your head and the right analog stick. This could bring you accurate aiming like with a mouse on Xbox.

Don't think in the box of ONLY this new device!

 

[DreD]

From a tech stand point, that was a pretty impressive conference. Still, they did not show any serious games supporting Natal, which makes me seriously doubt what was shown. Seems like these are only promises for now. Also, I don't really see this as a game changer for the rest of this generation. They did not announce a price or a release date and they even mentionned that the developpement tools would be in the hands of developpers soon. This means it will be a while before we see some real support for this tech.

 

[Mr. Durden]

That stuff with Milo was some of the most impressive tech I have ever seen in my life. I never even thought this was possible this generation.

How can some of you not acknowledge this :lol
It just saddens me how pessimistic some of you people are.

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

I think it looks really awesome, but I refuse to believe that the Milo thing was not scripted. You could break that scenario so easily, AI is not advanced enough to do the things that Mr. Molyneux was implying, especially to program in a few months. It was a bad decision to end off with him talking, I found the things he was saying to be a bit creepy in fact.

True. I know it's scripted and it just reminded me of all the lame boasting of Sony in the past. 55 million polygons and shit like that. Yes, it's intriguing but it's not a game. It's a life simulator. They spent all this time on this and the best they came up with was voice and facial recognition, not in game play.

Yeah I'm just not feeling this. I love motion control and this just screams stupid. The thing about the wii was despite the obvious minigames and the like, you could clearly see how the motion control and the IR could improve traditional games, and we did see it happen in games like mario galaxy and Pro Evolution Soccer.

Natal doesn't invoke that same " I can't wait to play FPS, RTS, sports games, etc etc" feel that the wiimote did.

It doesn't help that the applications they used to showcase natal are strange. Throwing paint? Elephants? Mylo=Seaman? MS couldn't convince one of their studios to make a more traditional game to showcase the Natal abilities in general gameplay. Zelda:TP was a big hit at the Wii unveiling.

Also no 3rd party games. Not one. Not even Tony Hawk. This might validate Nintendo decision not to pack in the classic controller.

Oh well. They still have time to impress me.

Although, that clip of them playing soccer has me intruiged. Imagine Football with a few people playing oline? Could have some party potential. Or at least, get the guys interested. But I'm still worried about movement. Wii included the nunchuck, what will MS do?

 

[deadhorse32]

Natal is quiet amazing technicaly but is only gonna work great with big ample movement. What's good with the Wii is that you can mimick real life or just be more casual and make very little movement. Anyway with the DSi R&D, I'm pretty sure Nintendo has been working on this kind of stuff too.

Mylo is retared though

Edit : And the X360 is bound to stay for a while with that peripheral only being release in 2010 I don't see MS releasing the Xbox 3 before 2013.

 

[laserbeam]

No way it's $200 standalone, Mattrick said they're bundling it with the console in the future.

Mattrick did not say they are bundling.

Mattrick said and I quote
"Natal will work with every 360 we have sold and every 360 we will sell in the future."

 

[Jaruru]

:lol :lol :lol at all the raging Wii fans.

:lol :lol :lol at all the m$ fans who laughed at Wii years ago.

 

[a.wd]

Well Im not all about the waggle, but my girlfriend is. Plus moving through menus using your hands is cool as fuck....

 

[DrGAKMAN]

We don't even know the price, the release date or the support.

Sure it really *seems* great, but how accurate is it...it looks like EyeToy 2 to me. Maybe this "one-up's" the Wii in some ways, but it's a sold-seperatly peripheral, not a "game changer". Wii has the mind-share (as well as userbase/support/games) in this sector and I foresee that the Wiimote will be more accurate for more types of games (could you use Natal for a traditional game or a FPS?) thanks to the built-in IR and with WM+ I see the "waggle" being better than Natal too.

Only time will tell...but I really do think it's too late for MS to have a comeback against the Wii in this sector.

 

[spwolf]

Around $200? I can't see too many people paying that much for this, regardless of how cool it is. That raises the price of a motion-controlled 360 to $400-$600.

that cant be true, too expensive... plus i am sure it will be camera you can use for other things as well.

It looks cool, i guess they could have some special games built around it that would work well... i am not sure if waving my hand around to pick options is really useful, but some sports games could work well i guess.

 

[TheKingsCrown]

Knock over a magazine rack on your way out...this tech is neat in "demo" from but it'll be at least a year or two before anything meaningful will come from it, and by that point, we are gearing up for the next batch of consoles...they should have held off.

Someone give this man a medal. Too little, Too early. Don't blow your load until the right time or consumers aren't going to share in your orgasm.

 

[Prine]

I thinks its a great evolution of Waggle. The free hand navigation and face/item regcognition is mind blowing tech, this thing has incredible potential.

This will be a major hit among the casual. Im excited to see where they take the minority report stuff. Major breakthrough in human computer interaction.

 

[Hero]

Oh GAF, you never cease to amaze me.

Natal is still a ways off, that much is clear. No release window, no price, no third party games shown off? At least a year away for any developer who wants to jump in on this. Even so, why would you try when the install base for the Natal is starting at zero and is unproven?

I admire Microsoft for trying to improve upon technology but nothing they showed made me go "wow, that really does seem like an awesome game to play with Natal." No actual games that "core" gamers want, nothing to differentiate it from what "casuals" want who probably already bought a Wii.

And the shit with Peter at the end, while a cool premise, is still years and years and years away. That kind of AI and programming will not see the light of day for a while.

So ultimately this accessory is coming in the ending part of the Xbox 360 cycle and what will it do? I sincerely doubt this will be supported well enough outside of Microsoft. In the end, Nintendo has shown time and time again that games sell consoles/accessories, not the other way around. I am remaining highly skeptical.

 

[MikeE21286]

No way it's $200 standalone, Mattrick said they're bundling it with the console in the future.

he never said that...he said it would work with future units.

 

[JaMarco]

No way it's $200 standalone, Mattrick said they're bundling it with the console in the future.

Exactly, where the hell did 200 come from?