After watching Microsoft’s Project Natal promotional video I began to think of possible concerns that might arise while playing games or movies. The potential of this is monumental and is a great leap forward in the future of gaming technological advancements. But when seeing this it almost screams first person shooter all over the place. But how could this sensor see small hand gestures such as pulling a trigger on an imaginary gun. It doesn’t appear feasible unless there is some hardware component that works in addition to the camera. Or quite possible holding your existing controller and using it as a gun while the sensor picks up on your movements. This seems like a step backwards, when the idea is to not use a controller at all. Maybe they might go the wii route and come out with FPS peripherals that work in conjunction with FPS games and project natal camera.
My next concern comes while watching the promo video where it depicts a couple watching movies and navigating through menus with their hands and also voice controlling the playback of the movie by saying “Play Movie”. I really do hope they sorted this out but how does it know when I am talking to the device or if I am talking to a person in the room? It seems like a big whoops if they didn’t work on that part. Unless it works similarly to how computer interaction is done in star trek. A geeky example from star trek is when someone wishes to locate someone else on the ship they simply give a touch the emblem on their uniform to initiate a response to the computer and they state “Computer” followed by command “Locate Captain”. This implementation would avoid massive confusion than if I were to casually ask a friend could you locate captain… and the computer would jump in and try to answer me.
Tags: Concerns Project Natal, Project Natal, Project Natal First Person Shooter, Project Natal FPS
I have some ideas for how this would work with a FPS.
HOW YOU’LL WALK/RUN:
Imagine a square on the floor and you’re standing in the middle of it. Move forward in the square to walk forward (backward to move backward, etc..). To sprint, move to the far edge of the square and do high-knees.
HOW YOU’LL SPIN AROUND:
Drag your foot along the floor to “spin” the scenery. Drag your right foot back to turn left or forward to turn right. Kick hard and keep your foot off the floor to do a pirouette.
HOW YOU’LL USE A GUN:
Hold your hand like a gun and then, to fire, blink your left eye OR lower your thumb down to the knuckle of your middle finger.
Happy Mensch I like your input but I think blinking would make people dizzy and feel more tired. My belief is it would someone more reluctant to play the game because it becomes a chore than an adventure. I’m sure if Microsoft is reading this blog they should pay attention to feedback and make corrections as needed.
Even if it could pick up on a trigger gesture how accurate could that be. You know how precise these things need to be to please FPS enthusiasts.
@encript, I agree about the blinking. But touching your thumb to the knuckle of your middle finger could be a recognizable (and non pain-in-the-ass/ non tiring) gesture.
If you use your index finger to point to your target (duck hunt syle) I think you’d get pretty good accuracy. If it wasn’t good enough, perhaps Microsoft could calculate aim by drawing a line from your eyes to the tip of your finger to your target on the tv. Thus, anything you look at over the tip of your finger would be “in your sights”
I have concerns that this might suck for FPS, which is why I’m putting so much energy into thinking of ideas to make it work. Microsoft, are you listening???
Your Idea for touching sounds cool. Sort of like how in their promo video in order to play the trivia game you need to “Buzz in” by hitting your hand in a buzzer like motion. This looks similar to reloading a gun in a FPS. It looks like Sony might have been correct about needing some type of button. This would be the killer peripheral if it could play all types of games and not just party type games.
One small thing I would like to add . . . No WAY IN GODS NAME WILL THIS WORK! All your Ideas are great, but its just too complicated. If a person walks into the room and wants to play, go on ahead. But the whole pulling a trigger issue sounds way to difficult for an ordinary person to adapt to. And another problem i noticed.
Say your playing Call of Duty (any of the last 4) and you want to play multiplayer or co-op, will one person be able to pick up a regular xbox 360 controller and have a simple deathmatch with another friend or person that is using the Natal Motion device, which also questions whether you can do the same online. Will everyone in a co-op mission on xbox live with thier friends be required to use a Natal Motion device or can it be mixed with controllers? So many questions for Microsoft, and so little answers from Microsoft. Not that I have any thing againt them, but these questions will eat gamers inside out until they get satisfiying answers.
The buying of this Natal Motion device among FPS hardcore gamers may depend on answers to the questions i’ve listed above. Microsoft, if your reading this, please recognize these many concerns.
I feel your pain. There are very little questions being answered here. This will either build huge anticipation or set people up for major disappointment. It will be funny when there are vs matches where people will actually harm each other because they are so involved with the game. How many lawsuits will they see in a year. Safety first warning will need to be made more apparant. As for fps games we have as much as an idea as everyone else. It’s a great concept that we all want to see succeed. The xbox was build almost entirely on fps games and to not include natal in this would disappoint many users.