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E3 09: Microsoft Announces Project Natal
The Craziest Thing You've Ever Seen
Microsoft’s E3 press conference included some huge announcements; Halo Reach, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Facebook and Twitter implementation, Left 4 Dead 2…the hits just kept rolling on. But nothing they could have announced would have been as jaw-dropping as the details on the Natal project seems to be.
Microsoft has announced a controller-free system, called the Natal Project, that acts as a sort of motion-controller, motion-capturer, facial and voice recognition system. The system allows people to play games and navigate the Xbox 360’s menus without any sort of hand-held controller. Natal can figure out who you are, where you are, what you sound like and what you’re doing, and recreate all of it on-screen in games. Additionally, the system, was shown photographing and recognizing a skateboard which was them used in a skating game, indicating that real-world items will be instantly “uploadable” into games.
As far as actual playable games go, two were shown at the press conference. One had a nimble young lady defelecting dodgeballs in a virtual room, and the other was a virtual paint studio where a rep did his best Bob Ross impression, drawing us an elephant on a painted landscape, complete with happy little trees. Both games seemed extremely responsive, and appeared to have 1-to-1 accuracy as far as matching the player's movements.
On a personal note, I’d just like to say this: HOLY CRAP! THAT WAS THE CRAZIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. OH MY GOD! SONY AND NINTENDO MUST BE SHITTING THEIR PANTS! MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR SO HARD THAT I CAN’T FIND IT!
Of course, the few tech demos we’ve seen don’t guarantee that the system will work as well as we hope, but if it does, this could be a huge game changer. It’s the kind of thing that, if it were released as part of the Xbox 360 at launch, there might not be a console war at all. We’ll see what Sony and Nintendo can do to top this, but the bar has been raised pretty high from the beginning. Good luck, fellas.
Comments
Yeah this is just another way for microsoft to rip off Wii i mean avitars-miis motion controlls-wiimote i mean come on
This beats teh wiimote. go to xbox.com and watch teh video of this it looks amazing
Well, developpers have had over two years to work with the Wii Remote now, and a good number of them are still getting it wrong.
It'll take forever for them to get a good hold on this technology.
@cortex: but if it works as well as advertised Nintendo will be screwed. It's already been shown that the don't give two shits about core fans. Microsoft, on the other hand, does. If they can implement this successfully and have some solid titles behind it it'll be tough to beat.
well i dont see how anyone could even begin to compare this to the wiimote :S technology like this isnt just made up in a couple years in retaliation to the wii. as an educated man i'd have to assume this was in the works following the completion of the xbox 360 simply as their new project. i dunno MAYBE it is something that was made to fight the wii, but last time i checked the technology is completely different, there is no more than simple un-educated connections to be made between them from my point of view.