Microsoft's Natal Video: Video Games Getting Weird?

[GCT]

http://www.viddler.com/explore/Joystiq/videos/1118/

Wii is coming out with the motion plus and Microsoft has a new device which provides somekind of a virtual reality experience ... now I am not an avid gamer but the first impression that I am sensing from the Natal video is that it seems altogether a bit ... awkward - it's a pretty " out there " concept and everyone in that video just appears idiotic. Who's going to want to have a party with this involved? They might as well just have an imaginary tea party. Something is just not right with this Natal concept , a word of advice to the people at Natal ... please do not come out with a tea party game or anything like it.

How well is the motion going to be captured and how much more realistic is this concept from a computer camera e.g. one of those applications where you are able to bounce a beach ball around the computer screen with your live image embedded in it and how much fun will it be to play video games constantly walking and swinging your arms and legs at the camera - with the Wii it's just the arms but the whole body?! C'mon!

We are entering into some strange realm here , frankly I believe that a lot of people play video games for the mastery that comes with gaining a sense of control and for the rush that comes with being able to flow through the game with the acquired skillset , it's a lot easier to get this fix with an actual physical controller ... and this is where Microsoft went wrong - they got deluded.

 

[mgb_phys]

How well is the motion going to be captured and how much more realistic is this concept from a computer camera e.g. one of those applications where you are able to bounce a beach ball around the computer screen with your live image embedded in it and how much fun will it be to play video games constantly walking and swinging your arms at the camera - with the Wii it's just the arms but the whole body?! C'mon!

It's pretty good certainly better than any stereo camera gesture recognition stuff I have seen.

The point about the Wii was that not only did it have a revolutionary new controller but it also had a lot of playable games that appealed to more than the traditional game market.
If all the Natal project does it let you play first person shooters but using your hands to make gun shapes - like playing Cowboys and 'Native Americans' in pre-school then I can't see it catching on. A good game might be guitar hero where you play air-guitar in front of the camera.

What they need is some really imaginative new uses for the technology and a new approach to computer games, like the Wii has.

 

[f95toli]

frankly I believe that a lot of pe...ns; not everyone is looking for a challenge.

 

[Pengwuino]

Oh my god the guy attaching the new wheel! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: . The part with the girl playing soccer sounds like it could wind up with a LOT of broken furniture and stuff near the TV! hahaha!

To be honest, the concept has some interesting applications, especially with fighting games! It'll be hilarious to see fat kids fighting each other wiht multiplayer though :rofl: . Beyond that, a lot of those features look quite interesting; the ones that aren't actually gaming applications. Of course, demos of new systems sometimes seem kinda silly at the start. I think I remember before the Wii came out, the promotional crap made me laugh but hey, it ended up being pretty sweet.

 

[Huckleberry]

I felt the same way about the Wii. Turns out I was wrong. There are lots of innovative ideas in their games. I felt the same way about many of the Nintendo games before that, but some of those games like Mario Cart that I thought were too childish turned out to be good fun for adults too.

 

[rootX]

1) geeks no longer will be fat
2) Televisions will be replaced more often

 

[GCT]

who says that geeks will even buy this stuff? How are they going to chow on burgers and fries all the while swinging their imaginary Star Wars sword simultaneously?

It's all a matter of how one prefers to control the characters ... the realism is in the graphics and if it is a matter of realism the PS 3 will always win , no geek is going to prefer swinging their limbs at thin air especially if they have less control of what's on the screen a result.

 

[Pengwuino]

who says that geeks will even buy this stuff? How are they going to chow on burgers and fries all the while swinging their imaginary Star Wars sword simultaneously?

OBVIOUSLY Microsoft will make a game where all you're doing is eating fast food :rofl:

 

[Moonbear]

Oh, that is hilarious to watch! It's not a bad idea, especially for the people who are too uncoordinated to remember to hold onto the Wii controller when they're bowling and throw it through the TV.

Oooooh, I have a new business idea...and it's mine, mine, mine, all mine...no stealing my idea! I'm going to get some of those and set them up in an arcade, or pub, or internet cafe, and put windows around it and seats outside the windows. I'll keep the fees really low to play, and then charge for admission to the seating area for the spectators, along with of course the overpriced food and beverages. Yes! I'll make a killing on the spectators who will be entertained for hours watching the fools playing this game! :rofl:

 

[ExactlySolved]

These kind of motion sensitive control systems are all about novelty, and appealing to non-hardcore gamers. For hardcore gamers the problem is that in the world of fantasy and ideas it's better if you forget about your corporeal body.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

GCT.. Remember DDR and Guitar Hero. Two extremely popular games that people look silly doing. And they weren't marketed for geeks. They were marketed to target the vast community of non-geeks who are generally not terribly interested in Star Wars video games.

Oh my god the guy attaching the new wheel!

I laughed.

 

[Moonbear]

These kind of motion sensitive control systems are all about novelty, and appealing to non-hardcore gamers. For hardcore gamers the problem is that in the world of fantasy and ideas it's better if you forget about your corporeal body.

It's not so much novelty as just having fun being silly, finding games that don't glue the children to chairs, and where the games are short and can be easily interrupted. There are a LOT of us who are not "hardcore gamers" who generally lost interest in video games when they got too serious (as in, you needed to work too hard at them and be too competitive to play them as intended) and became very solo activities. These kinds of things are more family-oriented, where you can find a variety of games such that grandma can even play with the grandchildren, or the whole family can feel involved, even if they aren't the one holding the controller.

They probably don't appeal much to the introverted, reclusive nerd who retreats from his family and isolates himself in a violent fantasy world to escape whatever is making him moody that day, because just the nature of having to look silly while acting out a game is going to gain attention and is probably best suited for those with more outgoing, bubbly, extroverted type personalities.

 

[Huckleberry]

They probably don't appeal much to the introverted, reclusive nerd who retreats from his family and isolates himself in a violent fantasy world to escape whatever is making him moody that day, because just the nature of having to look silly while acting out a game is going to gain attention and is probably best suited for those with more outgoing, bubbly, extroverted type personalities.

Oh, that's harsh but true. Well, not really true because they can appeal to introverted, reclusive types also, but true enough. Looking silly is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Pengwuino]

It's not so much novelty as just having fun being silly, finding games that don't glue the children to chairs, and where the games are short and can be easily interrupted. There are a LOT of us who are not "hardcore gamers" who generally lost interest in video games when they got too serious (as in, you needed to work too hard at them and be too competitive to play them as intended) and became very solo activities. These kinds of things are more family-oriented, where you can find a variety of games such that grandma can even play with the grandchildren, or the whole family can feel involved, even if they aren't the one holding the controller.

Along with that, hardcore gamers DO find incredible games that seem like novelty at face value. I just got back from playing Rock Band 2 with a few friends. The crazy thing about games that require real motion are that they force a lot of health requirements on people who tend to not get them on normal games. For example with the drums on rockband, every person has a limit where they just have to get up and walk away for a while. Same with the guitar for a lot of people. With the wii, there's games where the same thing applies, you have to get up and walk away from the tv and take a break after a while. Traditional games you can just sit and play for hours and hours on end which is unhealthy.

DDR can be ridiculous. I've seen in-shape people succumb to that game fairly quickly haha!

 

[neu]

The immediate application i can think of will mean red light districts will go out of buisness

 

[Sorry!]

Wow if this thing actually works that way. It will be amazing I think. The whole sims thing would probably just be to make ppl spend money to microsoft though lol. But IDK some of those games look like they would be great to play... Maybe slightly dangerous though hmm

 

[evilpostingmong]

I hope they make a new 2d castlevania game for the consoles. A bit off topic, lol.

 

[mgb_phys]

Remember this is Microsoft so the games available will be minesweeper and solitaire.
Minesweeper will only be possible if you have one of those black and white tiled floors to jump around on but playing solitaire on an empty table might be interesting.

Tetris however is going to require you be a Yoga guru to get into some of the shapes.

 

[Kurdt]

I don't see the point in the driving game. Its better to have a force feedback controller so you get some sense of the cars dynamics. For fighting games it might be more fun like the first example.

 

[AhmedEzz]

Sony HAS to come up with something equal or else they are doomed by the angry consumers.

 

[Kurdt]

I don't know. Things like the wii and this new system don't appeal to me at all. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Wii by yourself is kinda stupid, but I admit, it is a blast playing with my family on holidays.

 

[Borg]

Here's an idea (mine, mine, mine...). How do you think this would take off if combined with Second Life? It seems like a perfect fit.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't see the point in the driving game. Its better to have a force feedback controller so you get some sense of the cars dynamics. For fighting games it might be more fun like the first example.

Yes, I agree. Some things, you would really like to feel something in a controller, not just pantomime. I wouldn't be able to steer at all based on what I saw in that video, which looked like massive over-steering.

Wii by yourself is kinda stupid, but I admit, it is a blast playing with my family on holidays.

Yes, I think that's the appeal, turning video games more into a group/social activity rather than something played in isolation. I think it would be a great thing for rainy days, or in climates with long winters to give you something to do other than sit around all day.

 

[Moonbear]

Here's an idea (mine, mine, mine...). How do you think this would take off if combined with Second Life? It seems like a perfect fit.

I don't know. I could never figure out how to make anything in Second Life work and it crashed on me too often. I wanted to try it because a colleague of mine was telling me he used it to interact with students and to give seminars to interested people, but I couldn't seem to do anything but find billboards and then it would crash.

 

[rootX]

Yes, I think that's the appeal, turning video games more into a group/social activity rather than something played in isolation. I think it would be a great thing for rainy days, or in climates with long winters to give you something to do other than sit around all day.

It would be perfect if room weather/landscape could also be customized like the one in game i.e. Getting summer weather inside your room in winters.

 

[Borg]

I don't know. I could never figure out how to make anything in Second Life work and it crashed on me too often. I wanted to try it because a colleague of mine was telling me he used it to interact with students and to give seminars to interested people, but I couldn't seem to do anything but find billboards and then it would crash.

Second life never appealed to myself either but, from a financial standpoint, they could make a lot of money from the millions of people who do play it. If that became the defacto controller, that could be one of the killer games they would need to go with the app.