Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[zed]

Hmmm...give me an example of a Natal game where hands flying behind backs and bodies getting stretched and shrunk and leg placement all over the shop won't be an issue.

Ill point you to a post I made when natal was first announced + I have repeated multiple times
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1303892&postcount=369

say natal panned out 100% (*)
it will benifit only certain games
.. party
.. fitness
.. ummm help me out

genres it wont help
-FPS or other shooters
-driving
-platform
-fighting (perhaps a limited form of boxing though)
-etc

Like I've said for the umpteenth time those ppl (a huge number of the ppl on this forum, though I believe now theyre starting to see it my way) thinking theyll be playing the majority of games with natal solely are deluded, like I keep repeating its got to be 100% accurate, 99.9% accuracy is not good enuf.
platformer - player jumps or moves left, onscreen character doesnt do this cause natal failed to pick it up + character dies.
driving - player turns their hands right, car goes straight ahead cause natal failed to pick it up, car crashes into a wall
etc
this is a gamebreaker, the player will just say bugger this give me back a working controller again.
With party + fitness games where accuracy is not so important , not having 100% accuracy isnt a gamebreaker

latency is not so important cause the player can expect that

 

[Arwin]

What Wii motion control has shown the world is that you only need a single game to be successful with it. For the Wii, that was Wii Sports (and similarly for Wii Motion+ it's Wii Sports Resort, basically).

So all that Microsoft needs to focus on, is getting that one game right, and it can be a similarly party-ish game style. From there on, it's all a matter of being able to position the package, including the 360, so that its image doesn't get in the way of sales to families and kids.

The choice that Microsoft faces is whether or not they will market Natal standalone, or whether they will (also) try to get the device into people's homes through the more hardcore people who currently already own a 360. Evidence so far seems to primarily point to the former, and their product seems to suit this.

Same for Sony - first and foremost they basically need their Wii Sports equivalent, and they need it to be good, to cover an important gap in their portfolio versus the Wii.

However, Sony always wants at least to try to make something that's great for everybody. That's the whole philosophy behind the Playstation 3 and its the same behind the Move controller. Of course this has also been partly informed by their experience with the EyeToy. For them, their goal is clearly to develop Nintendo's headway into motion controls and try to perfect it to the point where it can compete with the good old dual analog stick. I personally think that's a pretty good idea - lets not forget that the currently all-popular dual analog stick originated the same way.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Volley ball ? Casual bowling, virtual jogging, deep sea fishing may be possible too.

I don't follow. You're saying if you reach to knock back a volleyball and Natal flips out and sticks your arms behind your back, that's not a problem? Or if you go to bowl and the skeletal tracking reports to the game engine that you've just flipped upside down and released the ball left instead of forwards? Or maybe a running game where you have to dodge obstacles, only when you duck Natal stretches your avatar 6 foot tall so its head hits the beam you were dodging, that's okay?

Controllers should not report false info or fail to register. We wouldn't accept button controllers that report an X button when an A was pressed, or a move left when we pushed right. So far that's what Natal keeps showing in these demos. MS need to have that fixed. And they may well do, but we're not seeing progress, and their history isn't good. "Lips" would record good singing when the mic was scraped along the carpet. "You're In The Movies" didn't work either. That's two peripherals MS have released with dodgy software driving them. That doesn't bode well for this third endeavour using state-of-the-art, unproven, unestablished tech that so far keeps showing issues.

 

[Arwin]

I also think patsu's logic is a bit flawed.

But most scenarios (not necessarily Volleyball though!) will be able to 'expect' more specific behaviour than this 'game' (it's basically above all a good test-scenario, as it involves all limbs and quick sudden movement). Most actual implementations should be able to do better than this.

However, I do agree with you that Microsoft still have quite a lot to prove. I also agree that their track record isn't fantastic. But from the overall impression that I've been getting, the technology should be good enough for the audience Microsoft seems to target primarily.

 

[goonergaz]

It's not the lagging that's worrisome; Molyneux reported big improvements I believe.

oh dear, what's "worrisome" for me is that people still listen to the master of overhype! lol

Like zed, I've said from day 1 that I am very skeptical of the MS claim "no more need for controllers - super accuracy" (etc) and since then we've seen no end of 'downgrades' from taking hardware out of Natal to downgrading the number of players (etc).

I've always thought this is little more than a upgraded eyetoy and I guess at least if I'm wrong I can only be impressed!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've always thought this is little more than a upgraded eyetoy and I guess at least if I'm wrong I can only be impressed!

The underlying technology is great, and the principals are sound. It's definitely more than EyeToy in principal and I feel people should be excited for the possibilties. My only question is implementation. Actually add a second question, will developers do anything worthwhile with it even if it works?

 

[liolio]

In regard to the "MWB"

Spoiler

moon walk bug

I think that ricochet is also expecting so kind of stance from the player. Every demo made/support by MS

Spoiler

last year E3, in I don't remember which tv serie

had the demoer standing with legs properly spaced, no crossing legs or whatever. Still the point is that it looks like the kid couldn't care less, the bug is distracting but it doesn't seem to affect the gameplay if one leg is to ouch a ball it will no matter it's the left one doing so instead of the right one.
Another interesting fact is that the kid is able to play pretty close from the tv which is reassuring after all the talk on the matter.

 

[goonergaz]

The underlying technology is great, and the principals are sound.

so were eyetoys - and that never filled it's potential, hopefully with the added abilities Natal will finally complete the eyetoy aims, however this will still be below the initial promises from MS.

 

[obonicus]

Still the point is that it looks like the kid couldn't care less, the bug is distracting but it doesn't seem to affect the gameplay if one leg is to ouch a ball it will no matter it's the left one doing so instead of the right one.

That shouldn't be much of a metric, though. Give a kid that young an unplugged controller to a regular game you're playing and he'll still have a blast.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I expect the reason most players take a balanced stance is that's the natural play-position if you need to hit and kick balls! Regardless though, the tracking ought to be able to accurately position limbs without them doing the impossible. After all, isn't that the point of all that data collecting MS have done, so that occluded limbs can still be placed with some accuracy? However, the errors are showing impossible results that ought to be stopped on account of being impossible. Why would crossed legs cause a problem when the 3D depth data would clearly present a leg in front, and bone mapping would position the legs as per the stance? You can't humanly get from a position of crossed legs to the legs switched around in a single frame's time, so the tracking should be getting lost. How is the growing/shrinking avatar explained through skeletal mapping issues? If it knows the boy's head and shoulders, it should be able to map the avatar to his stance. Height shouldn't be an issue as the skeleton is the same, and children are a key target here!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

so were eyetoys - and that never filled it's potential...

No, the EyeToy was just a camera. It did what it did okay, but developers didn't really take to it. Depth cameras are a new, promising tech. And MS's intial promises shouldn't really be held against them here. It was infant tech and they gave us their aspirations, but real-world limits have sadly got in the way. You can't predict that early on. So either you shut up and say nothing, Sony's method with its motion tech RnD, or you give your optimistic guesses and then have to whittle back, which is typical from prototypes to final products.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I just think it'll be really dissappointing if MS fails to deliver with Natal and developers end up deciding it's not reliable enough to do "good enough" skeletal tracking for the games they want to make.

Regardless of whether the thing can still do hand tracking precisely, since i predict (like the other good fellow in this thread) that one of the big potential money-makers for Natal would be sports and fitness games... i.e. games that require solid skeletal tracking, if Natal ends up too gimped to be used with these then i honestly can't see much use for the peripheral in terms of it's application in other game concepts.

Natal as of now is worrying me... and MS' secrecy regarding it's showing at E3 just proves to fuel that worry even more.

I personally wouldn't care if they delayed the thing another year, at least do it right first time, otherwise it may sting them next-gen when all consoles (i expect) will be shooting right outta the gate with some sort of motion control interface.

 

[liolio]

That shouldn't be much of a metric, though. Give a kid that young an unplugged controller to a regular game you're playing and he'll still have a blast.

 

[goonergaz]

No, the EyeToy was just a camera.

Whilst it was 'just a camera' it didn't stop there being "potential" that was beyond the "realistic ability" - like with Natal, over promised and under-delivered - that's all I was trying to say.

Sony have been showing demos using eyetoy that are similar to what Natal is promising for years...Sony have realised that it's not going to happen any time soon (I assume due to everyones home having too many varying conditions) so have gone for the wand/eye combination which (from what I've seen) gives you the best of both worlds.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony have been showing demos using eyetoy that are similar to what Natal is promising for years...Sony have realised that it's not going to happen any time soon (I assume due to everyones home having too many varying conditions).

Which, theoretically anyhow, isn't a problem with the 3D camera. Heck, MS could ditch the skeletal tracking and just use 2D image matching tech only filtered within a certain depth range! That'd solve all the visual issues of optical methods.

 

[Arwin]

Sony have been showing demos using eyetoy that are similar to what Natal is promising for years...Sony have realised that it's not going to happen any time soon (I assume due to everyones home having too many varying conditions) so have gone for the wand/eye combination which (from what I've seen) gives you the best of both worlds.

Best of both worlds would be to have Natal's infra-red based depth perception and skeletal intelligence with Sony's Move controllers.

 

[goonergaz]

Best of both worlds would be to have Natal's infra-red based depth perception and skeletal intelligence with Sony's Move controllers.

true, but the nearest that's actually going to happen (this gen anyway) is the Sony solution is it not?

 

[patsu]

I don't follow. You're saying if you reach to knock back a volleyball and Natal flips out and sticks your arms behind your back, that's not a problem? Or if you go to bowl and the skeletal tracking reports to the game engine that you've just flipped upside down and released the ball left instead of forwards? Or maybe a running game where you have to dodge obstacles, only when you duck Natal stretches your avatar 6 foot tall so its head hits the beam you were dodging, that's okay?

No... I meant those games do not require absolute precision. They can adjust the speed and "hang-time" of the ball to tune against the lag.

Controllers should not report false info or fail to register. We wouldn't accept button controllers that report an X button when an A was pressed, or a move left when we pushed right. So far that's what Natal keeps showing in these demos. MS need to have that fixed. And they may well do, but we're not seeing progress, and their history isn't good. "Lips" would record good singing when the mic was scraped along the carpet. "You're In The Movies" didn't work either. That's two peripherals MS have released with dodgy software driving them. That doesn't bode well for this third endeavour using state-of-the-art, unproven, unestablished tech that so far keeps showing issues.

I watched the entire video. There is lag but if the user feels connected to the game sufficiently, it may be good enough -- especially if the objective is to exercise. If you look at their faces, the players don't seem to feel frustrated. I suspect it is difficult for a 3rd party to judge the personal experience by watching someone else play. Dr. Marks cited something called “somatic gratification”, it may apply to both Natal and Move.

 

[patsu]

Something related:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/05/speech-recognition-isnt-dead/

Robert Fortner’s penned a fascinating post-mortem on speech recognition software.

Android has it, and Google has taken it to other platforms; Apple appears to be very interested in expanding voice search on their phones, and not just simple, one or two word queries. Apps from the very companies Fortner implies are waning (Dragon Dictation, for one) have proven extremely popular (and impressive) on the iPhone. The implicit assumption in the piece is that if desktop speech-to-text is on the wane – and it’s pretty clear that it is – then so follows the entire dream of talking to a computer

...

Is it ?


I tried Voice Control on iPhone this morning and turned it off. Speech recognition is not reliable, but there are some situations where it's applicable (because our hands are tied up). I think the problem with speech recognition is it adds an additional control layer rather than removing it, making the experience cumbersome.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I watched the entire video. There is lag...

Are we talking about the same thing here? My point isn't the lag, but the way limbs don't follow the player. Lag you can live with, but if you go to hit a ball and find your avatar's arm isn't there hitting as you request, it'll be annoying! These is a very different problem to lag. Similar to EyeToy's lack of motion detection in low-contrast conditions. You can compensate 200ms of lag to move your arm in advance to his a ball, but if the motion doesn't register the lag is the least of your worries.