Project Natal and why it will not work

[Christemo]

i agree that on the fact that Motion sensers = shit. for example, the Wiimote is all too slow and uncomfortable.

controllers are win, and we have known that since the U-force.

 

[Kiutu]

If you have to look at the controller for quick time events...you are not used to the controller. I play best at Guitar Hero with a controller, and is that not the ultimate quick time event game?

I think they meant more the situation where the b button becomes the melee button, and you instinctively know to push that when you want to beat something, but when it pops up a little red button at the bottom of the screen you are no longer thinking of it as a melee attack, but finding and pushing the button.

That said I agree with what a lot of people have said in that everything will take time to get used to... but honestly the idea of waving my arms like an idiot is not what I would look for in a game currently. And I know I'm afraid of change as much as the next person, but I've always been a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" person, at least not for something that will only deliver results as good as we have now.

If they think they can really improve gaming through this technology, more power to them, and I hope they do... but until I see this is worth the change (and the expense that will surely accompany it) I'm not going to be camping out for any releases.

On a side note, why is it that the little plastic guns we get at home aren't up to the standard at an arcade. I had Duck Hunt with my little plastic orange gun back on the SNES and I loved that game. I also love Point Blank and Time Crisis (especially Point Blank <3) at the arcades. Point Blank's accuracy can't be any better than the Wii's, and I don't even have motion plus yet, but those guns look a lot better than the little Wii-mote add on things (haven't got them either (been poor lately)) and they don't have that awesome recoil action that the Point Blank guns do. And no other system has even tried as far as I've seen. We can get a universal turnstile for DJ Hero, and a skateboard (I really want to know how they're going to simulate doing a trick on a controller with no momentum) but we can't have a gun peripheral?

Maybe all of my problems will be solved at once and Natal or whatever Sony does will let them make a good gun and let us loose through some arcade fun... but I'm not holding my breath.

Still not good enough then, since games already muck that up. I played Bad Company then GTA4 right after and thought my controller broke because I could not change weapons. (GTA4 changes using control pad, Bad Company uses the bumpers)
Also PS2 had that camera thing which is really what NATAL is (but supposedly much more advanced) and though you feel silly, it was pretty fun. Virtual Reality though is really what I hope NATAL pushes us towards, ya know, those Sci-Fi things where YOU are truly IN the game.
If it aint broke dont fix it...ok...but dont advance it either?

 

[Chrissyluky]

honestly i think its just everyone jumping onto webcams YEARS late and becuase its on a console they think they can sell it for more.

 

[blankedboy]

I agree but the one reason, I agree because I have a deep hate for Microsoft. (not aimed at Xbox)

I have a deep hate for Microsoft, except their kick-ass operating system(no 's'):
WINDOWS XP

 

[Aardvark]

The mind will adjust to compensate. Whenever you're doing anything that requires an interface of any kind, from driving a car to turning the pages in a book, once you get used to the interface, you don't notice it anymore. The conscious thoughts you initially require when not familiar with it are eventually taken over by the subconscious, which is much better suited to mechanical tasks, leaving your conscious mind to focus on the story/journey/game itself.

With the natal, it will be no different. It may be awkward and weird at first, but eventually, when you become more fluid at the required limb-waving, your brain will delegate the responsibility for moving your body as required to your subconscious mind, freeing up your consciousness to enjoy the experience before you.

 

[PurpleRain]

I can agree to a point, but I'm not willing to discount it just yet. The great thing about gaming is it enables the player to interact with the world on a both conscious and subconscious level. For an example, you can play a game like Typing of the Dead much more efficiently once you've learned to touch type than when you could not.

Once you could, the keyboard stops becoming a cumbersome control scheme and instead responds more like a keypad with 44 buttons. In the same way, the game Shenmue shows how a QTE can feel more natural in a game. Instead of becoming a mechanic that relies on button-presses, the game's QTE response is tied directly with gameplay mechanics. The "A" button will always jump, the "B" button is always a catch or grapple, arrow keys respond to their requisite movements. It means that even though the flashing "B" on screen would pull away the player and force them to consider the B-button as it is on the controller, it also corresponds to catch, and action your character would do after jostling a waitress carrying tea.

I feel like NATAL has some ability to be an immersing mechanic, though decidedly one with a learning curve. At this point, I'd even say much like the Wii. In the Wii's case, it is pretty clear that it can be functional even on a large scale. The only question in my mind for NATAL is whether or not the developers will be able to make use of the control scheme. Considering the rocky history of peripherals like the EyeToy, it's particularly clear that game developers don't have a perfect idea of how to use such a peripheral, much less to any advanced extent.

I'm not willing to write it off just yet, but the learning curve will make it more difficult to be as immersive as a more natural feeling control layout.

Hmm, I agree with you on your points. Perhaps the motions may become second nature, but needing to communicate to a flat screen in front of you when unneeded feels too hard to get into it. I wish I could comment more on your post but you wrap it all up neatly.

I think that the success of Natal (is that even it's real name) will come entirely down to how well developers implement it's technology. They could very easily go with the arm flailing style of many Wii games which will break the immersion of the game or they could make the game respond to natural body movements and by doing so not break the immersion of playing the game and add some real depth to the experience.

I have a feeling however that Natal is going to be an additional part of many controller games. With Fallout 3 you really need to use a controller. Bringing up VATS and selecting the head with arm movements is not going to work but imagine if Natal studied your face and based on facial expressions and possibly tone of voice conversations would work out differently or had a greater effect on persuasion. This may be a lot of addition work for the developers and the pay off may not be worth it but can you see where I'm coming from? Natal can be used to give the player a greater range of control and interaction in a game but hey, it could also be used to make a bunch of shitty party games.

Time will tell.

It will be restricted but so are gamepads in a way. It won't become big enough as the gamepad though to be the next controller with what restrictions it has.

this argument is far from compelling. arcade shooters like time crisis or house of the dead work just as well at home as they do in the arcade, and it would be ridiculous to try and play them with a controller. i don't know enough about racing sims to comment on steering wheel peripherals, but i'm not thinking about the steering wheel when i'm driving an actual car.

It works well, but better and more sophisticated shooters are found without the guns and are much more open with gamepads though.

 

[Knight Templar]

I remember a study that found that "hardcore"/regular gamers moved less when playing games, than "casual"/non-gamers as well as blinking only half as much.


We don't move because we're not sitting on a couch or chair pressing buttons, were off in the clouds, so to speak. When I play Mass Effect I'm killing Geth and saving life itself, not pressing buttons. When playing eye toy I'm waving my hand like crazy, not playing pong or knocking over monkeys.
I feel like I'm hitting something in Condemned when all I'm doing is moving one finger a little bit yet (going back to eye toy here) I don't have that feeling when I punch for real. My point is there is no feedback; I can pretend I'm punching when I'm not if it feels like I am on some level. I know my arm should hit something, if it doesn't then there is no way in hell you can convince me otherwise.

Despite this I don't want to discount natal completely, I thought the voice controls for Endwar would be a good way to play, but wouldn't draw me into the gameplay. Wrong, I was happy and very involved to the point I sometimes gave orders without a moments thought, and I considered them orders, I wasn't saying words anymore.


So I'll wait until I experience Natal before I say it will or will not fail, I've experienced all it has to offer before, but not so well made and not in a single package.

 

[Neiloken]

sorry if this is kinda just retelling old tales... but i honestly think video games are meant to be played while chilling out... After a long day running around campus from lecture to lecture, then training... im not exactly in the mood to jump around my living room... I'd much rather park off on the couch, controller in hand, and dazzle those around me with my gruesomely amazing endeavors... that being said in the most modest way i could but ya you get the basic idea

 

[Acaroid]

The point of a game is to get its user into the world created for them. To submerge him or her into an imaginative universe were the subconscious takes over playing while you consciously make all the decisions. Not the two key words here:
Subconscious and conscious.
We are not to think about what we are doing. We do not think that we are using a controller. QTE (Quick time events) rip the user out of the world as they look down at that comfortably sitting gamepad resting between their grubby mitts. It makes them bring their mind out of its subconscious zone of thinking into the player actually hitting the buttons. The entire fact of having a gamepad is to have something invisible in your hands and to not notice your fingers going to work. As soon as gaming comes to a conscious level, the zone is broken and you are ripped out of the world.

The controller in its natural habitat.

In 1986 the first two gamepads came about when Nintendo launched its NES controller and Sega made its reasonably cool sounding Master System controller. Twenty three years later and we are still using controllers. They have more buttons, can do a wider range of tasks and even include rumble packs and ghost cords, but in general terms, they are still the same things. Throughout the history of gaming, we have had many different types of 'controllers' that are made to put people into the game. These include some that work:
The Guitar Hero Guitar/Drumset/Etc
And most that don't:
Gun shaped controllers (to some extent)
Steering wheels
Etc

I found that the guitars are used as a necessary part of the game, to hit the buttons and also to throw it up high to get Star Power. While guns may work with some games at arcades, general ones used at homes feel out of place holding no value and having no need that a gamepad couldn't have easily and already exceeded. Steering wheels are also clunky and so unneeded outside of the arcade. So how is Natal going to hold up?

"It's like I'm really playing a game!"

Natal takes away all gamepads, and all things needed with your hands and brings the game to you. What can be wrong with this? How does this takes the user out of the game?
Like mentioned in the first paragraph, Natal brings the game to the conscious level. People talk to unfamiliar objects and people with a conscious mind, not subconscious as someone would holding a conversation with a friend. This however is not a friend you are talking to nor a light conversation. This is inhuman and a game needing to be controlled with voices and motion. This is generally designed to keep the user at a conscious level thus breaking the world that they are supposed to exist in.

I for one cannot see people being absorbed into this world of Natal when for so so long gamepads have served us just fine. Not only just fine, but with comfort, with ease and posture. They have recently been designed to fill the hand and so no cramping or breaking the user into the conscious world. And for so long we have grown used to the idea of having this non-existent tool in our hands; the strings to which we hold the puppet. Changing it is an unnecessary use of money and power wasted on nothing.

Why do I write this? Isn't it an old subject and already established that people are not going to like it? Yeah, basically. I just wanted to show a different angle on the story and voice an opinion of mine. And perhaps it can get a few people thinking and appreciate the levels of subconsciousness of gaming and how the gamepad fits into all this like a jigsaw piece.

I think people are looking at things like project natal and not giving the ideas the full credit, it seems like people have the idea of "well controllers work, why fix it", the truth is controllers dont always work in the context you are talking
.the first time you pick up a controller, I mean the first time in your life, you are completly concious of what you are doing, even why first playing a new game, you have to re-learn buttons etc.

But over time you learn the buttons, what they do etc this is not anything to do with the controller but human nature. Take riding a bike, or driving a car, after many many years of doing such a thing you do it without thinking, it is like 2nd nature, but when you first used it everything was totally thought out.

"People talk to unfamiliar objects and people with a conscious mind, not subconscious as someone would holding a conversation with a friend. This however is not a friend you are talking to nor a light conversation."

I really dont understand your point here, you are saying because we are talking to to a game that it will break the conscious level of gaming??? and I have to ask, piles of text, loading screens, cut scenes, hell people walking in front of your TV isnt going to do that anyway?

My point is, I dont see how taking away a controller could be a negative in the context you are talking about. It comes more down to how smart the programers are and how they can use this technology to make sure you dont break the emersion.

did you think of ways of how project natal could be great for emersion game play??
Think about your conversation with the game, not with motion capture technology, it could effectivily read your face, posture etc, and thus your reaction to things, your mood and many other things. Could you imagine playing a game and it reacts totally to how you feel? instead of making you try and feel a certain way.

Honestly it isnt going to come down of the concept, or method of control that is going to make project natal pass or fail, it is going to be what game companies do with the technology, but that is just my opinion

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I knew Natal would be a bad thing straight from it's annoucement. I watch the video of it, Saw the soccor mom's playing it, and immeaditly thought that it was the end of being an orginal. The current generation brought gaming into the mainstream. But if Natal has half the success as the Wii did then I think the term Gamer will soon be used to describe everyone.

 

[Mcface]

too long. did not read.

Just kidding, i just think its a stupid idea, and will probably never be created in the next 10 years.

and if ol' peter has anything to do with it, it will probably end up being a huge brick wall that you smash your face against until you bleed REAL blood.

 

[TaborMallory]

Well, mostly the interview with Peter (Fable) saying that it won't need a controller.

Peter Molyneux has a nasty habit of exaggerating when he's the announcer.
Also...
For the first point, people play games to be absorbed into it, not to be aware of it.
Have you ever heard of multiplayer? Sure, doing some crazy action to do some mundane task would be a bit shattering on the subconsciousness, but I don't see why that would be a big deal if one wasn't playing a campaign designed for immersion.

 

[Wilbot666]

Australia's Hyper magazine called Natal a "child-touching sim". I laughed so hard I almost prolapsed.

 

[Danny Ocean]

*Snip*

Well, what this seems to boil down to is a matter of habit. Learning to use any kind of interface takes time, but eventually it becomes second nature. From using a gamepad to driving a car to flying a plane. At first it'll seem unintuitive and weird (Ever tried to get a non-gamer to play a game? "Which button?" "The red one" "Where?" etc...), but eventually you'll use it so much and get so good with it it becomes second nature.

I think all of the scepticism simply comes from unwillingness to change habit. If they suddenly made all cars mind-controlled people would lampoon the hell out of it, even it it made them safer and easier to learn.

What Microsoft is doing with Natal is attempting to make the interface for a game the same as the interface used for life. The Matrix is coming, and it shall be awesome.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Project Natal will be extremely limited when it comes out. So limited it will have to come with an attachment two years after its launch just to reinvigorate it. ZING!

Okay, seriously, it's too ahead of its time. And you know a fad like motion controls are going to go away when the Wii's last major games relied on regular controllers rather than the wii remote.

 

[oppp7]

It's funny, because every hard-core gamer hated the Wii's motion sensor for attracting casual games to the console. Now, Sony and Playstation are ripping the Wii off, most likely at the expense of some hard-core gamers.

 

[Shy_Guy]

I've got two points that rip your theory to shreds.

-Who says Natal will focus entirely on immersion, or be made for serious gameplay?
-Who says Natal won't be able to work alongside standard controllers?

OH MY GOD THANK YOU. Seriously. I love how no one has any imagination what-so-ever to think up ways in which Natal can ENHANCE current controllers!

And I really can't understand how people refuse to believe that "Hardcore" and "Casual" games can coexist on one console.

Also,this man speaks the truth:

You are making an assumption that all people are like you. As a power user I am very aware of the joypad/mouse/keyboard I have in my hands as its the weak link to my interaction.

So you understand my level of commitment I have a Track IR, I have a MS Strategic Commander, also the MS Sidewinder Dual Strike & Freestyle. In addition I have the HET Evomouse, the R2 'Omnimouse', more common devices like the Nostromo n40, n52 & its ilk Ive owned as well. Ill be buying a Neural Impulse Actuator Controller shortly.

This isnt gadgetry its the desire for a solid multi-functional controller. Not only are FPS's becoming more complicated as the attempt to render human movement & function with a deeply unrealistic set of options (Interestingly SWAT 3 an older game did it really well) but other games are as well as they increase in depth newer avenues to interact with that depth are required.

'Console' gamers while economically dominant lack any desire or input in the fields of ergonomics. 'Joypads a joypad innit' will not encourage new games & new trends or expand the limited level of interaction a console can deliver.

On behalf of driving sim players everywhere Natal seems like a great idea. Excluding actual driving wheels (Which your wife wont appreciate lieing around the living room floor) hand tracking software would be a god send. Flight simmers whos lives are hard enough with even the limited control set on a PC, would be set for life if they could simply look around the virtual cockpit & flip a switch with a motion.

This is ignoring voice control.

Looks like Natal might be useful to other people than yourself. I for one am interested in its potential for games that joypads cant even come close to emulating action. There has never been a good sword sim doubless there are hundreds of sports & other activities that will benefit in addition to the activity contributing to exercise & the potential for disabled gamers.

 

[Inuprince]

The most important fact here - I think - that Natal will aim at the casual audience.
I don't think developers will try to create games like say Assassins Creed or GTA on Natal because who the hell would be able to run around for hours or wave their arms in swordfights or holding their hands like playing an FPS.
I thought that deiving gameplay was dum as well - but on the orther hand when the two families were playing a gameshow online that was a great idea - and that's something Natal will be perfect for.

Although if the controller and Natal can be used together - than it would be great for an RPG - like lets say Oblivion - you run around and do the quests with the controller but when you interact with the people Natal is there for you - it would be so much better if we could say our own answers - rather than just clicking on the ones the developers offer - that would be great for the immersion - at least these are my thoughts on the subject ...

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

I for one cannot see people being absorbed into this world of Natal when for so so long gamepads have served us just fine.

I agree on the conscious and subconscious part, however:

Keyword bolded. This isn't just for us in a sense. While some motion controllers are aimed at everyone, and some motion controllers are aimed at the already established audience of gamers (which in my opinion, is batshit insane) everyone complaining about the lack of tactile feedback shows that this was not made with us in mind. While I disagree on points because I feel there will be a selection of games where your controller and Natal can work together, and you can scan in items and peripherals (which is going to make the peripheral market boom) I think games that use your full body will have as much longevity as EyeToy titles. Partial movement is key for most of their games, like the Wii subtlety is key.

That being said, I'm sure Microsoft know this. I don't think they are going to let this flop, they will make enough of a push for it, and have a decent selection of games for it. I don't see this as an attempt to turn this into a standard, but a healthy alternative, and it may well flourish as an alternative. It'll boost the longevity of the console a further five years or so, so it can continue to compete with the PS3, but will ultimately land in third because it will hit market saturation much quicker than Sony's console will. That's my prediction.

Either way, this isn't just for us, it's targeting other markets as well. And I don't think it will fail.

I knew Natal would be a bad thing straight from it's annoucement. I watch the video of it, Saw the soccor mom's playing it, and immeaditly thought that it was the end of being an orginal. The current generation brought gaming into the mainstream. But if Natal has half the success as the Wii did then I think the term Gamer will soon be used to describe everyone.

Gaming has been in the mainstream since the NES era, it's just been gaining more exposure as time goes on.

 

[Littaly]

That's clearly a chick holding the controller on the picture, so sadly it's not in its natural habitat

Regarding the actual point you're trying to make though... did you just try to bash Natal with science? I guess you should have some bonus points for that ^^

I still think we should wait and see though, at least that's what I'll do.