This is what Project Natal will be released as: Microsoft Kinect, leaked today and officially announced tomorrow at 1pm in a press conference. Also possibly announced at E3 is the 360 Slim... http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/13/rumor-xbox-360-slim-and-kinect-outed-by-microsoft-ad/

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/13/microsoft-kinect-gets-official/

And here is your official trailer for Project Natal:





(it was really a seat belt PSA)

6/14/2010 1:10:57 AM

shibby

6/14/2010 1:12:18 AM

I've said it before... No one's going to develop any game for Natal/Kinect that ends up being legitimately good. It's a gimmick. I'd almost call it a scam if "ripping off the clueless" weren't such a common business practice, particularly in the video game industry. They'll sell it to people for exercise or family fun or some much creepier hard-to-classify reasons (basically the handful of people who thought that whole Milo thing might be entertaining for more than a few minutes).

There won't be good games, though. They won't have plots or decent writing or deep storytelling or that movie-like "epic" quality, and there won't be any serious or balanced or competitive multiplayer... Not until this sort of thing becomes an accepted standard and comes included in every box, anyway. No decent development studio is going to ramp up their costs and their effort just to produce something that most gamers won't own. It'll take a LOT of money from Microsoft before a dev studio tries to be the ones that sell the device to gamers. So, really, this sort of thing won't add shit to gaming until next-gen at least.


Really, it seems like it's barely even meant to be sold in the first place. It exists to tell everyone that Microsoft can hang along with the Wii when it comes to non-traditional control scheme innovation, even when its very existence (or rather, relatively delayed existence) basically proves that they can't. And frankly, that sort of thing hardly matters to a lot the people they try to market it to... Non-gamers (people who see video games as more high-tech versions of toys or board games) have almost no interest in the tech industry (or the gaming side of the entertainment industry), or which company is beating which. They barely even know that a competition exists (hell, even if there weren't idiotic fan wars on the internet, the companies would still make a huge competition out of it), and they probably won't want to spend money on this if they even own a 360 in the first place. A lot of gamers, on the other hand, will likely see it as a gimmick or unnecessary or a glorified tech demo. There's just not much of a good reason for it to exist as a product on its own, besides just saying "hey, we did this huge innovative thing, might as well sell it." Its just a stepping stone on the way to what could become a standard feature in the future.

On a note of personal opinion: Mostly I dislike the way they (MS and Sony) think they even need to keep up with the Wii in the first place. It reeks of cluelessness, and these people are supposed to be professionals... The "damage" has already been done. Nintendo has already stolen the non-gamer demographic of gaming; at least until the next generation of consoles roll out, and by then it will be a whole different ball game... because the old people who bought a Wii for exercise and family fun will all be wondering why they need to buy a new one, or why "they" can't just keep developing more simple Wii games, or why everyone can't just be happy with the games they've already got. Eventually those people will catch on, but the needs of the non-gaming demographic are so simple/easy to fulfill that there won't be nearly as much opportunity to sell them stuff with the Wii already out on the market and getting cheaper.


-----
Summary for yet another long post about gaming:
Utterly pointless peripheral which probably won't sell well to anyone... but it might be something that comes standard in next-gen consoles, and by then maybe it'll be worthwhile as a gaming device. Until then, the Wii still controls the non-gamer market.

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 2:18 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2010 2:14:02 AM

So this is just a motion/detection peripheral (sp)?

6/14/2010 5:56:21 AM

^It's also got a bunch of voice and emotion recognition stuff.

Like the whole Milo project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIbGnBQcJY
Here it is being played up by Peter Molyneaux, king of pompous douches and over-hyped games.

6/14/2010 6:33:40 AM

The coolest thing about it will be controlling the NXE desktop minority report style

at least that's what all of the reports claim it can do

oh, and unrelated, I still really like that psa

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 8:34 AM. Reason : .]

6/14/2010 8:29:31 AM

well, this has huge ramifications for Pirates 3!

6/14/2010 11:59:13 AM

That Milo video is such complete bullshit. Not acted my ass.

6/14/2010 2:23:40 PM

star wars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxJO8lZwPso&feature=player_embedded

6/14/2010 3:06:09 PM

Star Wars looked cool.

If they really wanted to impress me they would have made MGS: Risen compatable with Kinect.

6/14/2010 3:07:24 PM

tromboner: you are a fucking idiot. Just goes to show how easy it is to be narrowminded and completely out of touch with the rest of the world.

I've played on Natal, and it is FUN AS HELL. Way, way more immersive than the Wii. Having no controller actually does make a big, big difference.

And using it for a hands-free experience all over xbox is really compelling. This is not competing with the Wii. It allows people to things fundamentally different. It's not JUST about casual games or Kintect-only experiences.

Imagine in Forza being able to drive with the steering wheel AND use Kinect to actually look around. Now imagine that same kind of thing in Halo, Gears of War, etc. No more mouselook is pretty hardcore gamer to me (at least the possibility of it).

It's obvious you don't get the different between a motion controller and motion tracking. But your inability to use your imagination or any creativity doesn't mean no one else can or will.

6/14/2010 3:11:04 PM

I'm very interested in seeing how that Star Wars game works with saber battles. What happens if I swing my lightsaber and my opponent blocks it? Obviously on screen it will be blocked by in real life I have no kind of force feedback so my hands will keep moving as if they weren't blocked.

6/14/2010 3:14:10 PM

no controller can do that either? I am pretty curious to see how star wars will actually work. It's apparently still a LONG way from being ready, since even Microsoft executives only recently saw the demo they aired at E3

6/14/2010 3:18:32 PM

I don't understand what's so cool about being able to "look around"

Unless I have about 14 televisions set up, if I look to my right, I'm going to be staring at a window, not seeing what my character sees on the right

6/14/2010 3:18:46 PM

I will pay $150 to browse my netflix queue by hand.... bc that would be cool


srsly

6/14/2010 3:22:23 PM

Quote :

"Imagine in Forza being able to drive with the steering wheel AND use Kinect to actually look around. Now imagine that same kind of thing in Halo, Gears of War, etc. No more mouselook is pretty hardcore gamer to me (at least the possibility of it)"

Yeah, and those games aren't going to get made until it comes standard on every box. Just because something exists doesn't mean game studios are going to develop for it. At the moment, it's just imagination and future possibilities and mini-games without substance. Useless until next-gen, like I said, so thanks for supporting my point.

Quote :

"It's obvious you don't get the different between a motion controller and motion tracking."

No, I completely do. You don't seem to get that games are more than just tech.

6/14/2010 3:22:49 PM

Quote :

"If they really wanted to impress me they would have made MGS: Risen compatable with Kinect. "

I got the impression that it was...

6/14/2010 3:50:45 PM

Programming this shit has got to be a bitch

gotta have totally different scripts if(user=fat)

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 3:54 PM. Reason : ]

6/14/2010 3:54:17 PM

building kinect support into a game is an addition to standard controls, not a replacement. You can probably patch it into old games too.

6/14/2010 3:54:20 PM

Quote :

"building kinect support into a game is an addition to standard controls, not a replacement. You can probably patch it into old games too."

i'd hope so, because i'm having a hard time understanding how a simulation game like Forza can be completely modeled without the need for a controller - recognizing pressure-sensitive braking (or just regular braking, much less?), shifting, handbraking, etc.

6/14/2010 3:56:17 PM

The core gameplay is coded with those inputs in mind and then you write a translation layer for each controller to the inputs your game requires. For a standard wheel + pedals its pretty much straight through, but for kinect you probably want to get the input from the foot and translate it to something similar to how the pedal works.

I cant claim to know how natal works but theres probably some api thats like pitch/roll/yaw of the foot or something. That can be translated into the standard pedal model that your game is looking for.

XNA is the coolest goddamn thing and it makes this stuff a breeze.

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 3:59 PM. Reason : a]

6/14/2010 3:58:25 PM

They've shown stuff like that before with Burnout.

You have to be seated and the kinect needs to see your feet.

6/14/2010 4:00:41 PM

Kinect has bone tracking built in. It can see your arms, legs, hands and feet. It can tell when you are "pressing down" aka to accelerate, etc.

It's definitely a translation layer, and will not require brand new games to take advantage of. They showed Forza at the keynote, which I'm sure will be DLC for Forza3 to light it up with Kinect.

This is one of the many nice things about developing for the 360. Because you're sitting on top of direct input, adding a new control type doesn't require rearchitecting the game (technologically).

Quote :

" don't understand what's so cool about being able to "look around" Unless I have about 14 televisions set up, if I look to my right, I'm going to be staring at a window, not seeing what my character sees on the right"

It's called parallax, and it works even on a single screen.

Quote :

" Yeah, and those games aren't going to get made until it comes standard on every box. Just because something exists doesn't mean game studios are going to develop for it. At the moment, it's just imagination and future possibilities and mini-games without substance. Useless until next-gen, like I said, so thanks for supporting my point."

They are already being made. Just because everything hasn't been announced doesn't mean game studios aren't going to develop for it.

Yes, the mini-games look hokey as shit to watch. But they are a LOT of fun to play. I'll be getting a Kinect when it comes out just for the Adventures, Sports and Dance Central games. I had a blast playing the Adventures game. It was fun, super tiring and really engaging. A completely different experience from the Wii, where after the first day of it I was just flicking my wiimote back sitting on the couch.

6/14/2010 4:43:41 PM

i just want some damn eye tracking already, fuck this full-body noise

6/14/2010 4:47:04 PM

^it has it (or at least has the capability for it). There was a MS research video showing Natal doing eye tracking use.

6/14/2010 4:49:31 PM

^^^Don't get me wrong, I like that someone is making the technology, it just feels like they're trying to cash-in by selling a tech demo at this point... less of a legitimate and worthwhile product and more of a "hey look what we can do" attention grabber.

Though I suppose in the tech industry, there's less of a stigma about shameless cash-ins... at least compared to the entertainment industry (video gaming being a merger of the two, though I'd argue it falls more into entertainment). Especially given how often companies release a new tech product and then come out with a much better and much cheaper version about a year later.

Quote :

"It's definitely a translation layer, and will not require brand new games to take advantage of."

While cool, there's a potential downside to adding Kinect to some existing games. Similar to what happened when a few shooters decided to allow Xbox Live connectivity between Vista players and 360 players (example: Shadowrun)... there's an obvious problem when it comes to creating a level playing field. In a competitive multiplayer setting, if Kinect ends up giving players a significantly more precise control method, it creates a huge imbalance. That's the sort of issue that can ruin a game's online multiplayer community, too, if enough players have bought a Kinect. This sort of backwards accessibility (or whatever we should call it) is generally a very good thing, but they definitely need to be careful with using it on online multiplayer.

[Edited on June 14, 2010 at 7:27 PM. Reason : .]

6/14/2010 7:24:15 PM

Quote :

"^it has it (or at least has the capability for it). There was a MS research video showing Natal doing eye tracking use."

i'd be damned impressed if it could do it on my eyes, especially from a distance

i assume it shines IR light into your eyes and tracks the retroreflectors in your pupils and I bet that pig won't oink when you wear glasses

if it does visible light tracking, well then it's proper fucked

6/15/2010 8:10:23 AM

This whole Kinect thing reeks of stupidity and uselessness and I can't wait for it to fall flat on its face.

6/16/2010 3:41:19 PM

Quote :

"tromboner: you are a fucking idiot. Just goes to show how easy it is to be narrowminded and completely out of touch with the rest of the world."

Nah Tromboner is right. Project Microsoft Wii looks like overhyped garbage.

Unless you live in some Parker-Brothers board game commercial family, I don't see how this looks appealing.

Nintendo Wii owns the casual family game market.

The only response I have heard from my fellow 360-owners regarding project Natal is either complete indifference or annoyance with the hype Microsoft is trying to build up with it.

6/16/2010 4:53:33 PM

So like, apparently, this shit will only work when standing

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/109/1099085p1.html

Similar reports from other sources as well. Apparently it's been giving devs quite a headache.

http://kotaku.com/5565777/xbox-kinect-does-not-play-well-with-couch-potatoes

[Edited on June 17, 2010 at 12:37 PM. Reason : ..]

6/17/2010 12:24:39 PM

Between Dance Central and Child of Eden this is a day one for me. Rez that you control with your hands looks like a whole heap of fun. Heck, the fitness game looks really good too, but I'm not terribly sold on it yet.

6/17/2010 2:19:12 PM

I think the concept, if it works, will really hurt Nintendo

6/17/2010 2:20:01 PM

Quote :

"It's called parallax, and it works even on a single screen."

Can you explain this then? I'm confused.

Say I'm sitting directly in front of my television, and I'm playing a racing game. I want to look to my right to see if a car is coming up beside me. What do I do?

I'm assuming I physically turn my head to the right so it will sense that. Do I only need to turn a little so I can cut my eyes back to the screen to see what is going on? If I turn my head 90 degrees to the right so I can look out my passenger side window, how do I see what's going on in the game?

6/17/2010 3:44:27 PM

When he says parallax, I think he's actually referring to something like this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

although in the context above it does sound like he's referring to something more like what you just posted.

I agree, head tracking probably won't work well for camera control in FPS or driving games as far as what direction your character is facing/aiming at, but I am anxious to see implementation of the ideas in the youtube video I linked to.

btw, I think the guy that made that video (Johnny Chung Lee) has been working for Microsoft on Natal Kinect

I really want to see a 3D demo that combines the glasses technology (stationary 3D) with head-tracking technology (parallax)... think Avatar, but when you move to different seats in the theater the angles are different.

[Edited on June 17, 2010 at 4:11 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2010 4:08:40 PM

^Yes that is what I am referring to. GT5 for the PS3 will have this exact feature using the PS Eye Toy (aka PS Move).

You don't need to map head tracking 1:1 to make it work well. As long as the movement is proportional and consistent, you'd be surprised just how well it actually works in practice.

The sitting down question: I have no idea, but I will be you dollars to cents that non-gaming experience will working sitting down just fine. I think gaming sitting down is probably going to take developers a longer time to work reliably, or Microsoft a while to get tuned.

Keep in mind that MS has been calibrating Kinect and fine tuning it for standing for nearly a year at this point. It's not some small feat. I think its a worthwhile tradeoff to release it now with a solid standing game experience, and continue to work on other uses after it has hit the market.

Similar to the different between 1st gen games and 2nd gen games, as the game developers work with the technology they'll figure out new and compelling ways to use it.

6/17/2010 5:43:04 PM

I have a feeling they will never get sitting with a couch working right, but sitting on a standard wooden or fold out chair will probably work fine.

6/17/2010 5:52:06 PM

fat kids don't like all this moving around

6/17/2010 6:43:00 PM

This article actually got me much more excited about Kinect:

Quote :

""But what about the hardcore games? The FPSs, the gameplay that requires 100% accuracy?" I push. "Kinect isn't going to replace the controllers that have worked for those types of games for the last decade—that's not what we're trying to do. Kinect will work alongside those controllers for hardcore games. For throwing a grenade, for vocal commands, for..." "For head tracking??" "Yes, head tracking! Exactly." He gets a big smile. He wants to say more. Bound by Microsoft confidentiality agreements, he can't. "

http://gizmodo.com/5565657/xbox-360-kinect-teases-the-next-era-of-computing?skyline=true&s=i

It's good to know that Microsoft doesn't have any delusions about completely replacing controllers.

6/18/2010 8:41:23 AM

So is it going to fuck up my game everytime the dog walks past the TV?

6/18/2010 12:34:53 PM

Doubtful. It doesn't recognize black people, couches, or a seated person, so I doubt it would register a dog.

Now if another person walks past your TV.....

http://kotaku.com/5566968/joy-ride-may-highlight-a-major-kinect-problem

Quote :

"While playing the game at a recent Microsoft event, a person walked up to the table on which the television was sitting to pick up a glass. They never walked in front of the tv, staying instead to the side where I didn't even notice them. But for some reason the Kinect camera apparently spotted them and started tracking their body, forcing my car to the left and making it impossible for me to steer."

.........................

Quote :

" http://gizmodo.com/5565657/xbox-360-kinect-teases-the-next-era-of-computing?skyline=true&s=i It's good to know that Microsoft doesn't have any delusions about completely replacing controllers."

See, that's all well and good, and it's the sort of thing that would actually pique my interest in Kinect. Unfortunately, they haven't actually SHOWN anything approaching this sort of functionality. The shit they have actually shown, in live demos, has been really really underwhelming. I wish they would show me something that would suggest this is anything more than a glorified Eyetoy with a mic, but they haven't.



[Edited on June 18, 2010 at 12:56 PM. Reason : :]

6/18/2010 12:51:05 PM

^ What? I'm pretty sure skin color has no effect, iirc one of the demonstrators in the MS press conference was black. This isn't like that HP face-tracking camera, I've read multiple articles that confirmed it works for all skin types.

Of course it doesn't track couches. It will recognize there is an object there, but knows that it isn't a person. There has been a rumor that it is more difficult to track a seated person and is giving the developers more trouble, but that doesn't mean it can't.

No idea how it would respond to a dog, but I doubt it would mess you up - it wouldn't let the dog affect input unless it found a human shape to match it to.

6/18/2010 1:01:37 PM

I thought that the head tracking just tracked light reflected off of the photoreceptors in your eyes. I only asked because dogs have a shit ton more photoreceptors.

6/18/2010 2:26:39 PM

Haters gon' hate.

Some people understand that when a new technology comes out, it actually takes time to develop products for it.

Some people still think that software magically writes itself in a couple of months and that nothing should be a product until it does everything imaginable, perfectly, from day 1.

Haters gon' hate.

6/18/2010 5:43:34 PM

fanboys gon' fan?

6/18/2010 5:53:58 PM

http://dropbox.dakotahawkins.com/hate.gif

[Edited on June 18, 2010 at 6:05 PM. Reason : wtf why don't the image tags work for that]

6/18/2010 6:02:10 PM

^^I've gotten to see what the MS Research guys have done with Kinect. I honestly don't care about it for gaming much at all, but seeing what is possible with the hardware, I have no doubts that studios are going to come up with some crazy cool shit with it.

6/18/2010 8:42:38 PM

This is worth it to me just because I know, at some point, there's going to be something requiring the Kinect that will be so awesome and badass that I won't be able to resist.

Haters gon hate.

6/19/2010 12:36:30 AM

Quote :

"Some people understand that when a new technology comes out, it actually takes time to develop products for it. Some people still think that software magically writes itself in a couple of months and that nothing should be a product until it does everything imaginable, perfectly, from day 1. "

Oh the irony. This is quite literally the exact some argument PS3 proponents were making in the early days of it's life cycle, when it had a very limited game library, feature set (especially online), and cost $599.99. Look, I have no problem with Natal as a technology. I just question MS's strategy in putting all this money and marketing behind a product that, at launch at least, will be underfeatured (not to mention buggy), overpriced, and lacking in quality software.

Mid-generation console add-ons have traditionally failed in the past, but MS is really doubling down on this one and marrying it to the 360 as almost a relaunch of the console. It just seems like a huge risk, especially when they have already been so successful this generation and made very few missteps (RROD not withstanding). It would have made a lot more sense to keep Natal in the oven a while longer, iron out all the issues, and release it as a standard feature of the next XBox with a greater focus towards "core" gamers.

Same goes for Sony/Move really, but at least Move appears to A. work as advertised and B. is going to launch with a pretty wide and varied library of supported games,

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-computer-entertainment-america-delivers-groundbreaking-3d-technology-next-generation-motion-control-experiences-and-an-unrivaled-playstationr3-game-line-up-at-e3-2010-96415564.html.

It's not as exciting as Natal, since it's basically an "HD Wii", but it definitely seems like a much more fleshed out product release than Kinect. All the while, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank as they watch Sony and MS spend to try to capture a market that's already been claimed (until the next home console generation at least).

.......

Quote :

"building kinect support into a game is an addition to standard controls, not a replacement. You can probably patch it into old games too."

Actually you can't. Natal isn't just an additional input, it requires a significant percentage of CPU/GPU time to do it's work (around 10ms if i recall, roughly the same cost of drawing SHADOWS in a modern 3D game engine), meaning you would have to retool the game engine, either optimizing it or reducing the quality of the graphics. There is a reason we've seen so few Natal demonstrations with existing games, and the ones we have seen have been janky at best.

[Edited on June 19, 2010 at 7:30 AM. Reason : :]

6/19/2010 7:16:49 AM

^Ps3 is not at all comparable. That was just a performance improvement from existing platforms, no one claimed it was going to allow fundamentally new gameplay.

And you still don't get how software development works (and hardware development). Time to market is critical, and being that the 360 still has years left in the lifecycle, it makes no sense to wait for the next console to release it. It does make sense to release it now and let developers figure out how to utilize the technology so that in the next generation kinect can be used to the fullest.

Kinect is not going to ever be integrated into a console itself. All you tards saying that just show how little you actually understand how it works. The damn thing is motorized.

And actually you CAN integrate it with any game. Yes it will take a 10-15% perf hit, but like I said before, it's just a matter of adding the directinput yo the game. Again you don't understand the technology. Many games won't update for it because of the perf issues, but that doesn't mean they can't.

6/19/2010 12:52:25 PM

Preorder now!

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Project-Natal-Bundle-w-Choice-of-Game-Xbox-360/14665155

7/14/2010 4:44:54 PM