Microsoft takes aim at Wii with 3-D camera

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BUAP17UVF0.DTL

Microsoft, in a bid to court Nintendo Wii users while pushing the edge of gaming and entertainment, unveiled a new 3-D motion-capture camera Monday that encourages full-body interaction.

Code-named Project Natal, the camera is able to accurately transform 3-D body movements into onscreen play, one-upping the Nintendo Wii's handheld motion controllers.

The 3-D camera also comes equipped with facial-and-speech recognition capabilities that allow for more personalized and interactive engagement with Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console.

Microsoft showed several demonstrations in which players rode skateboards, fought hand to hand, painted a large canvas, kicked and headed balls or drove a race car, all with movements both big and subtle.

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I'm really excited about all the possibilitys this could bring to all genres. I do worry about its compatability with ""all 360's"" though.

I hate all this motion sensor bullshit. Bring on the real games! Rabble rabble rabble!

I don't count myself as a PC gamer when weighing in Consoles.

But I don't think I'm looking forward to anything outside of Diablo 3

so my XBL Vision camera is going to be useless/obsolete. Waste of money

Useless gimmick ahoy. I believe its gonna die off pretty quickly as third party developers don't really like this kind if thing, according to the Eyetoy debacle but then again we are talking Microsoft here.....

This too me is Microsoft's one chance to take down Wii. This will be very inovative and will sell alot of systems.

I think it looks pretty cool. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvHlwNvXaM


The video seems to be a lie, though. I doubt seriously that they can currently design games that are this interactive, so that it can recognize what you say and respond accordingly.

But maybe some things, like the interaction with the water, or sharing the piece of paper, that that can work. I don't see why not.

Also the reflection of the game player in the water -- is that possible? Pretty neat. I guess it is possible since it's a camera.

One thing though is this is more a motion control competiton with the Wii, the PS3 already has a limited amount of this as well (tilt sensor in the controller), I think the motion sensitive controlls is a more gimicky aspect. (though it does work for the golf, bowling, etc)

The IR pointer is a bigger deal in itsself IMO.

I think MS should stop fucking around with all this gimmicky bullshit and just concentrate on making a console that doesn't break. My 6 month-old arcade system just red ringed me, and that's 3 consoles in 3 years. I'm seriously thinking of just trading everything for it in and sticking with a PS3.

Fuck Microsoft.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melf

I think MS should stop fucking around with all this gimmicky bullshit and just concentrate on making a console that doesn't break. My 6 month-old arcade system just red ringed me, and that's 3 consoles in 3 years. I'm seriously thinking of just trading everything for it in and sticking with a PS3.

Fuck Microsoft.

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For realz. Do you know what version you had for the latest? Jasper or whatever?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melf

I think MS should stop fucking around with all this gimmicky bullshit and just concentrate on making a console that doesn't break. My 6 month-old arcade system just red ringed me, and that's 3 consoles in 3 years. I'm seriously thinking of just trading everything for it in and sticking with a PS3.

Fuck Microsoft.

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Agreed.
I've never seen a more unreliable piece of crap that should have been recalled or abandoned entirely by consumers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melf

I think MS should stop fucking around with all this gimmicky bullshit and just concentrate on making a console that doesn't break. My 6 month-old arcade system just red ringed me, and that's 3 consoles in 3 years. I'm seriously thinking of just trading everything for it in and sticking with a PS3.

Fuck Microsoft.

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Oooh man. I've been there. It's too bad that so many good multi-player games are on the 360. If all of my friends owned PS3s instead of 360s, I wouldn't have to worry about the red ring :(

Impressive technology, but there are so many types of games that I just can't imagine working with this kind of thing. You need buttons. I bet that either this won't be adopted much, or developers will resort to ridiculous Activator-esque gestures for game commands. I mean, say you're playing a first-person shooter. I guess you could stick your arm out and point towards the screen to aim, but how do you shoot? How do you walk forward? How do you strafe? How do you change weapons?

Plus, do you really want to stand and use your whole body to control every game? A lot of people complain about that aspect of the Wii and it's only a small fraction of the games. Most Wii games can be played seated comfortably, but the remote may have to be kept pointed at the screen; motion commands, if any, can be reduced to small gestures. The exceptions are games like Wii Sports, that you would generally only play in short bursts. I can see Natal working fantastically for a game along the same lines as Wii Sports. But not much else.

The 360 really is a good example of poor engineering. From what I understand the initial problems came with the small case design they used, the DVD drive was larger than planned so they decided to chop off the GPU heatsink to allow it to fit, but that's just the start, then they went and used a cheap x-clamp to secure the heatsink which tends to get loose, and to top it off their use of thermal paste is inconsitant, often too much or too little -a quality control problem. (replacing the clamp with simple screws and applying the proper amount of thermal paste solves this and most GPU overheating problems in general)

The other biggest problem comes from the DVD drive itsself, apparently many are pretty medocre in quality, but in particular most issues come fom using the system in the upright position, which apparently these drives weren't meant for.

I think that's pretty much it, AFIK there haven't been many problems with the hard drive or CPU. (which has a better heatsink and newer models have significantly smaller circuitry -making them run cooler)

So basicly, if they'd revised the case to account for the larger drive, made the system to lay flat (like the original Xbox), adn used a little better quality control they'd have saved consumers and themselves a lot of time and money. (and would probably be more popular)

The lack of real (hardware) backwards compatibility is kind of lame, particularly as the X86 archetecture would have been perfect for that had they continued to use it. (WTH did MS go with PPC??? ironic considdering Apply switched to x86 a few months later)