Natal Launch Will be "Like the Launch of Xbox 360"

[The Shade]

Gonna be sweet but buggy. Pricey but worth it. Hard to get your hands on but not very popular.It is gonna be a lot of stuff.

The Alpha and the Omega. The peanut butter and the jam. The spoon, and the...uh, not spoon. The cat and the dog. The matter and the anti-matter. The Jedi and the Sith.


I'm sorry. What were we talking about?

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I think claims that Natal is going to be as big as a console launch are optimistic at best. Sure, it's gonna create a huge stir (like it is now) but are we going to see the tidal wave of people running out to get their hands on it? I doubt it.

I suspect most people will drag their heels about it. Or at the very least, watch YouTube vids of people playing it and then criticizing it.

 

[Rigs83]

I can't imagine standing still in a line for hours so I can go home and waggle my limbs like a fool.

 

[Credge]

So far my favorite piece of media for Natal has been the Jimmy Fallon one. It showed the limitations pretty perfectly.

The first bit was great. They played that brickout game. Looked fun for a short period like most demos of that nature.

Then when they pulled out Burnout Paradise it went to crap. The limitations were pretty huge.

The steering worked. I noticed that when Jimmy took a hold of the wheel there was a fourth of a second of lag in some places (seemed random).

What got me, though, was that there was still waggle, just in different form.

The acceleration and reversing was waggle, but in your foot. It was also only on and off based on foot position, no in between light touch like you can get with buttons or a wheel.

The steering was neat, and it was the only thing that seemed to work.

What I wanted to see were more 'core' things like the guy spouted off. Who cares if you can drive... that's not what makes Burnout fun. I want to speed boost. I want to use my hand brake. Stuff like that.

Seeing as how one foot and two hands are occupied, I don't see how you could add those other things in.

It was a neat proof of concept, but it also summed up the limitations of the technology pretty succinctly.

 

[Finrear]

Who cares if you can drive... that's not what makes Burnout fun. I want to speed boost. I want to use my hand brake. Stuff like that.

Seeing as how one foot and two hands are occupied, I don't see how you could add those other things in.

It was a neat proof of concept, but it also summed up the limitations of the technology pretty succinctly.

Hand brake: You let go of the steering with one hand and grab a handbrake.
Speed boost: A sharp movement of the foot(the breakout demo already shows it can recognise "how hard" something is done or let go of the steering and hit an imaginary button.

There is always going to be some lag with this type of technology it just needs to be reduced to a usable level like wireless controllers have been. There are some genres that I can't really see working well using motion control (fps for example) but we already accept those limitations with other controller methods, joypads are crap with rts for example. It's not going to replace joypads, not by a long way but it will open up new areas. I just hope it doesn't go the same way as the Wii where genuine innovation is drowned in cash cow crap.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Like The Launch of the 360?

So there's going to be shortages and e-Bay jackals up the ass then?

Thanks for clearing that up MS!

 

[y8c616]

The Sony motion control looks way better

 

[RicoADF]

Do you mean a release with severe problems and a shortage of games?
Thank you, I will be here all week.

Yes well, it'll have the normal M$ quality in it . TBH motion control in general seems mostly pointless, alot of games are more fun when using a controller or mouse and keyboard IMO.

 

[Radelaide]

*Sheepishly* Er, what's a Natal? Are Microsoft having a baby?

 

[Lord Krunk]

Crap, I heard the Wii sales were going down, but you can only sell so many Wiis before most people have one.

That's what I was thinking. The drop in sales is probably because everyone has one now.

 

[Abedeus]

I can't imagine standing still in a line for hours so I can go home and waggle my limbs like a fool.

I pity the fool who stands in a line and waggles his limbs!

What is "natal"?

Motion control for Xbox, where you can control with your whole body.

Pointless if you ask me. We already have Eyetoy, no?

...For PC at least.

 

[WingedFortress]

I hope all the bums who cry about it every thread won't get it on launch so I dont have to contend with them.

 

[Credge]

Hand brake: You let go of the steering with one hand and grab a handbrake.
Speed boost: A sharp movement of the foot(the breakout demo already shows it can recognise "how hard" something is done or let go of the steering and hit an imaginary button.

From the looks of things, it detects the positions of both of your hands and uses that as a means to turn. That's, really, the only way the tech can work. It needs to points to form a wheel so it can tell how much you turn. With just one hand, it has no clue where the position of your hand is in reference to a wheel.

The point of the handbrake in that game is for cornering so, that doesn't really work.

Speed boosting has to be something more than just twitching your foot since you hold the boost down. Having an on/off switch isn't going to work in the game.

Playing Burnout with a wheel is very, very hard. Stuff like that would just make it harder.

Also, any input lag isn't acceptable. If you can detect the input lag, it's bad. However, it's not true that input lag is something that this sort of tech HAS to have. I've played webcam based games that have had no input lag at all. They were gimmicky, but they worked.

This sort of thing is like the Wii. It's going to appeal to mothers more than anyone else.

 

[doesthislookinfected]

As long as it doesn't cost as much as a freshly-launched console...

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Dismissing it now is kind of missing the whole point, is it not? The point is if the games make it worth getting, and we haven't really seen any indication of that yet.

As hardware, I think it's questionable. However, as a method of gaming, it may well be utterly awesome with a good, well implemented line up. Which, oddly enough, seems to be what they're going for.

I'll be the first to admit I'm still suspicious as to how well it's going to do, but dismissing a method of gaming before you've seen the games for it is pretty damn stupid.

 

[Jabbawocky]

Depends on how much is available for it when it comes out really. If they have a whole load of stuff for it that at least looks decent then they might just get away with a midnight launch etc. If it is the opposite end though it may be a 32x style mistake.

 

[Maikan Bacon]

The technology Natal uses has existed for years and years (mainly in military instances admittedly), but Natal is simply taking it that step further, look at the consoles over the years, each and ever gen takes it 'that step further' and why'd you think there's several years gaps in each console release - because new things are discovered, new bugs and glitches arise, and thus new means of fixing the bugs and glitches arise, it is simply a matter of time and well spent intelligent minded man hours before Natal enevitably lives up to what Microsoft say.

You could call it ambitious at this moment in time to be calling shots on long lines of people at midnight releases but really, back when you were playing your xbox (not the 360, the original xbox) and you heard of the 360, were you suddenly struck with the immidiate intension of queuing at midnight for a 360, for the wide majority the answer is no because it still had a way to go...

I feel that once Microsoft get a release date and a nice line up of games set for Natal and a justifiable price range and just the right amount of press coverage they'll achieve the line up of people at that midnight release.

My Two Cents - Don't flame it.
Bacon.

 

[Digikid]

I personally would love to get this thing. Anyone know what price range it is supposed to be?

 

[XJ-0461]

I've not really been following this, but it seems (and looks) a lot like an elongated EyeToy camera to me.