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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
06/05/09
MS sees Nintendo selling Wii's like hotcakse, and wants to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, the masses will not care.
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We use the Wii at least 3 times a month where I work; in the physical therapy dept of a nursing home. Wii bowling is great! But very quickly we realized that only our highest functioning residents can use the controller effectively. Then Wii Fit came around. Even better! Any resident who is able to stand, even those who need fairly extensive assistance to stand; can now go skiiing down a mountain side just by shifting their weight back and forth. Balance is an area we concentrate on anyway... in fact the Wii fit is an object we've used in therapy for years! But we call it a BAPS board. It was a great advance ten years ago when they added beepers to BAPS boards so a patient could hear when they were out of balance... now Wii Fit gives us visual feedback... but it is missing the audio feedback which is better for those with poor hearing. MS needs to develope some great NATAL games with visual AND audio feedback.
I can't wait to see if NATAL is going to offer us anything we can use. Wii bowling would have been perfect, were it not for the whole hold the trigger down thing. Many of our residents just don't have the fine motor skills needed, or some the mental acuity; but I'm betting most could just swing their arm to bowl. Don't underestimate what controllerless controls can do for those with physical OR mental limitations. MS need's to get some physical and occupational therapists on some developement teams, and make a good quality game set geared towards rehab; ranging from intense exercise, to mini games suited to those with even the most severe limitations.
The Wii is practically standard equipment in many rehab and geriatric centers, so if NATAL is utilized properly.... it can sell hugely in these areas as well. In fact, the rehab company I work for purchased a Wii for each of the over 700 faciltities that they operate in, and my facility's activities dept also bought one for recreational use; so the smallish ~100 resident facility that I work in... actually has two Wii's. Get the right people to develope the right applications for NATAL... and I promise it will almost become a must have item in rehab facilities and even schools for the mentally challenged.
06/05/09
Ummm you do also realise that natal offers huge hurdles for those with no gross motor skill right?
if you're bedridden how will you interact with natal?
if you are parapalegic how will you use natal?
MS?
Etc.
I would actually love to see MS respond to how this system will treat the handicapped or those with limited motor skills.
06/06/09
06/05/09
Stuff like head-tracking and voice controls should also be easily replicated in the Sony machine because its based off the PS Eye. The have in fact showed off head tracking with the PS3 a while back:
[kotaku.com]
The Natal is what's called a markerless mocap system, its been around for quite awhile, just not in a CE device. I'd agree it's the most exciting, but Natal style mocap is also possible with the PS Eye, but without the IR camera it'll need to make 'reference' markers without the aid of secondary camera. So it would be much less effective.
06/05/09
could Natal be used as a lowcost Mocap system for animation? after all, the Wiimote's finding a home elsewhere these days...
06/05/09
Also, there have been reports that Natal simply isn't accurate enough ( [www.eurogamer.net] )and the concept itself needs to prove itself. And we still don't have a slightest clue how much it'll cost.
Anyways.
Sony's "magic wand" may have alot more potential if they can make older games work with it. Imagine Oblivion, Demon's Souls, Killzone 2 with one-on-one movement?
Nintendo's MotionPlus can be enjoyable to use when they can also make it work with older games, precision is the key.
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The problem I have is that with Natal we see a lot of potential. With Sony's motion tracking, we saw results.
06/05/09
This is fanboy journalism at its best.
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06/05/09
A gun, tennis racquet, guitar, etc. And best of all it would be just plastic (with no buttons). although if they wanted to they could do a controller for rumble but thats not where its going imo.
06/05/09
The problem with Natal is that if they try to implement any gestures to represent actions in the game that don't correspond with the real world equivalent, then we end up with another Power Glove. An input method with arbitrary commands and gestures.
06/05/09
I've seen the Wiimote hacked for use on PC's via bluetooth to control apps like Sketchup and Autodesk Design.
could Natal be hacked for Mocap applications to use in 3D apps? from what I'm reading, it's got potential for that.
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How will Natal work with a traditional game? The Sony reps demoing their tech even said it..."Let's face it, you need a physical device..."
EXACTLY..
How would an adventure game work? How exactly would a Gears of War work? Without a button to press to take cover or reload, would you have to physically do it yourself? That may seem cool but there's no way I want to have to actually simulate the motion to reload a gun
in the middle of a firefight. Or would a series of motions handle all of those functions? why not just...I dunno...use a controller?
IMO, Sony had the better show for one reason and one reason only...they had a shitload of games that I want to play. The motion tech is cool but it's do far away, I'm not focusing on that. E3 is about the games and until we see some actual "built from the ground up" games running with this new tech it's all smoke and mirrors. That's not to say MS didn't have any games. I thought Alan Wake looked awesome and Halo ODST looks good. Perfect Dark coming to Live is awesome. But Sony just had so many more games in the presser that wow'ed me.
Nintendo's presser was absolutely pathetic until they showed Metroid and reveiled that Team Ninja is developing it. I wasn't impressed with Mario Galaxy 2, I was disappointed. I looked at the game and it looked almost exactly like the original. For a second I thought it was the original Galaxy. New Super Mario Bros Wii looks like a DS upscale, 4 player answer to the 4 player LBP online modes...but offline.
The Vitality sensor? WTF?!
No F-Zero, No Wave Race, No 1080 Snowboarding, No Zelda, No Pikmin, no new IPs...Other than Wii Resort, Golden Sun and Metroid: Other M, Nintendo sucked.
So, no...between, the games that were shown coming for PS3/PSN/PSP...I have to give e3 to sony. Not for some tech based on potential. I have potential coming out of my ass even time I hit the can. Nobody is giving me a ribbon for it.
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06/05/09
Nintendo announced games.
Microsoft announced a potentially useful gimmick.
Hmmm, yes, the choice is a hard one, but I can see how MS fanboys like you can make the decision so easily.
06/05/09
06/05/09
MS announced 2, count it, 2 first party games and natal.
The ONLY reason anyone is giving them so much credit for E3 (when in reality they did the least of the big 3) is because natal was impressive hands-on. So unless you gauge the winner by who had the best tech demo of a product that wasn't even ready to debut its final form, MS definitely did not place 1st.
06/05/09
06/05/09
I'm excited for natal, but the fact that people seem to announce MS as the winner because of nothing more than a tech demo at a VIDEO GAME EXPO is a sure sign of stupidity. Just like the lack of the ability on your part to realize this.
@onewiththewurlitzer:
True, but the 4-player coop 2D super mario scroller looks pretty damn cool to me.
06/05/09
06/05/09
Obviously reading comprehension is not your strong point. I did not call MS stupid for debuting natal. I called people announcing them as the winner of E3 because of it morons. These are all obvious facts and you're a troll fyi.