Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[patsu]

Shuhei Yoshida talks about software strategy and PS3 motion controller:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4179/sonys_software_strategy_shuhei_.php?page=1

You didn't show the motion controller at Tokyo Game Show. There was a bit of reworked Resident Evil 5 and LittleBigPlanet shown for the Japanese press, but that was it. We expected more. Are games not yet in an advanced enough state to be shown to the public?

Shuhei Yoshida: We showed demos of a few games -- so at least we kept our promise of showing live demos of games supporting the motion controller. But we decided not to have them on show floor. For one thing, it takes a lot of space to set up these kinds of things, you need more schooled staff, proper lighting and such things.

We are also still working on the motion controller; it's not complete. We are making changes to the hardware, so we really want to wait until we feel confident enough about giving the audience a chance to try it out. We are making progress, though, and we wanted to show at least snippets of games in that are in development.

...

 

[Crossbar]

Great interview. I thought this quote sounded really promising, that they will indeed cater to the hardcore audience as well. Having Capcom onboard while they are still tweeking the controller will certainly help.

Sony has released many things like the EyeToy, the GPS for the PSP etc, which are very "Sony" in the way that they are rather niche things which end up not getting much support. Understandably there's a bigger market for motion control. How do you envision it fitting in -- is it hardware or a peripheral? Might developers be required to used it?

SY: We are still in the very early days of motion control development. We have had discussions with the company management where we discussed if we approach this as a peripheral or a platform and we agree that this has huge potential -- so we position this as a hardware platform. The initiative was from the Worldwide Studios, but this has to be designed so that many different kinds of games from all publishers can participate in this hardware platform.

So it's not like in the case of SingStar, where the mic is designed to work with the SingStar games; we made a decision that this motion control is a platform product that has to work for a variety of products. So that's why we work with many teams to try different types of games to be able to cover the different needs of different types of games. So we have some teams working on very casual games, other teams working on core audience type of games.

We are very fortunate that Capcom and [producer Jun] Takeuchi-san has said that he wants to work on Resident Evil 5 for the motion controller because this is a different type of game than we are developing. So we are trying to get the needs from different types of teams as we design the hardware.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Stuff like this just makes me giddy with excitement

 

[patsu]

Another Sony patent with movie + augmented reality integration:
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/11/0...ry-science-theater-3000-style-interactive-tv/

This proposed program puts an overlay on top of a “media presentation” like a TV show or movie and allows players to interact with it while the presentation is playing. How? Here’s an example from the patent

“For example, avatars displayed to a user, in response to user gestures in the real world, e.g. in response to manipulation of a game controller or other such expedient, may toss tomatoes that stick to the actor’s face or bounce off the actor’s face and roll along a table that appears in the movie or television show.”

The mechanisms are fine, but I hope they focus on the content and game elements first. Otherwise, it may feel shallow or gimmicky.

 

[obonicus]

Sony seems to be hedging its bets:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...e-controller-to-track-motion-and-emotion.html

(Found via /.)

Sony has unveiled just such a system called Interactive Communication Unit or ICU, at the Vision 2009 trade fair in Stuttgart, Germany. It uses stereo cameras to watch a player and, like a pair of eyes, to judge depth.

...

Like Natal, Sony's system tracks a person's whole body without their having to wear the body markers used in motion-capture studios. Also like Natal, Sony says ICU can detect a player's emotions by watching their facial expressions, and can judge sex and approximate age from their appearance.

...

"We cannot at present detect 'finger signs' [but] we can detect where you are looking at on the screen – up, middle, down – and the raw position of your arms [or legs]," he says.

Probably nowhere near to being close to a product, but I imagine that if Natal turns out to be a huge success we'd see them bring this out so they're not cut out of the multiplat loop.

 

[patsu]

we can detect where you are looking at on the screen

The big question is the granularity.

Existing tracking systems can tell if a user is looking (or not looking) at a banner ad. If a future system can tell which enemy I'm looking at, it may help solve/reduce lock-on issues. Don't think it's easy though.

Facial expression, gender, glasses, age can already be estimated using one camera. The problem is lighting. Natal's IR camera provides an additional layer of info to better decision making.

 

[Crossbar]

Sophisticated as it is, however, ICU isn't yet going to be launched into the punishing domestic entertainment market, says Arnaud Destruels, marketing manager at Sony's image-sensing division.

"It's clear that if the consumer has a bad experience with the technology they could reject it without giving it a second chance."

Instead ICU is going to be launched first into the world of advertising, which will be its training ground, says Destruels. Interactive shop windows and billboards will provide a chance to iron out wrinkles in the system and to familiarise people with the concept, he says.

If I was mean, I could read this as: Sony plan to let Microsoft break new ground in the gaming market with Natal, innovate new game models, pay third parties to include support etc. If Natal is successful and once its market is established Sony will launch the ICU to the consumers and reap the fruits of the full-body-motion market.

ICU's stereo cameras can detect the position of specific points on the arms, legs and head to within 10 cubic centimetres, compared with the 0.2 cubic millimetre accuracy of Infinitrack.

Good enoug for limb detection a la Natal, I quess. Suitable for training programs and in-the-movie type of games.

It also has the ability to tune out the visual clutter around a player that could otherwise distort its results. "Once it detects a face 2 metres in front of the cameras, the system can isolate the person by only keeping the information between 1.5 and 2.5 metres away," Marti says.

Yup in-the-movie type of games are obviously on their minds.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The big question is the granularity.

Low. If they can't detect finger signs, they won't be able to tracemillimietre variations in pupil direction. The quote says 'up, middle, down', and three variations sounds about right to me.

Any eye tracking is going to need to focus on the eye to get enough info. A full-scene camera will never be up for the job, as 3 pixels of pupil is never going to be enough to get decent, fine-grained results. Now a camera set on a monitor at typical computer viewing distance may well be enough for that. I dunno how that could be extended to the living room on large TVs viewed from metres away.

 

[AzBat]

Natal launch details leaked

Looks like MCV got some launch details:

• November 2010 launch
• 5 millions units day one
• mix of peripheral & console bundles
• 14 games (first party & 3rd party)
• priced below £50 or $80US, trying hard for £30 or $50US

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36466/Natal-launch-details-leak-from-secret-Microsoft-tour

Those are some extensive plans if true. Let's just hope they have a game that people HAVE to have. If not, epic fail on the scale of 32X.

Tommy McClain

 

[Rangers]

I'm still greatly wondering how this will effect the 360's price as a pack in. I'm quite sure by now they wont raise the price with the pack in, but will they be able to do a price cut that is well due in fall 2010, or will Natal pack in costs stop that?

How will they do the SKU's, will there still be a no-Natal Arcade unit?

 

[AzBat]

Well, if we go by Pachter's prediction he was saying a month ago that the 250gb SKU with Natal would be $250 next fall. I agree that's not much of a price cut. It's more of a value add than anything else. But yeah, maybe he does expect an $150 Arcade with no Natal next fall? Wouldn't be so bad if the Natal is $50 by itself. However, I really think MS really needs Natal in all the SKUs going forward. In order for the peripheral to succeed, potential Xbox owners should have no choice but to get Natal.

BTW, the add-on might even replace the 12-month Gold subscription with Live Vision camera bundle. There's all kind of ways for them to push it.

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

£50 with a strong launch title/line up would be good value in the UK I think. £30 would be excellent. I imagine that'd be a loss-leader, even at £50, but that wouldn't be surprising. This is MS's best chance for a second-wind push to displace an increasingly popular PS3 and bury the platform. IMO it's in their best interest to value install base and popularity over income with this thing.

 

[obonicus]

I wonder if that price-tag (either of them) is at cost or as a loss-leader, or if they're making money off the peripheral. If they can sell at GBP30 at a profit, they might be willing to bundle it with Elites (or even arcades) at no extra cost.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can't imagine IR time-of-flight cameras are that cheap considering they're new tech that's not mass-produced. PSEye was sold at cost IIRC, and that was when webcam tech was still mainstream (alkthough it was a higher quality one at the time). The overal package for Natal including camera and microphones is going to have to cost. If it's really that cheap, I question its ability to do the job!

 

[Rangers]

I just kind of wonder if it hurts them though. Lets say it costs Microsoft $50 to start and they bundle it with all hardware as expected, there's no way to avoid that could be $50 off the price of the hardware instead.

The question is whether the potential positive appeal of Natal outweighs the pricing issue. I do not know.

Natal is in some ways an adversary to the 360's hardcore game capabilities, in the sense that resources spent there are resources that dont go elsewhere. I hope MS balances it well.

I wonder if that price-tag (either of them) is at cost or as a loss-leader, or if they're making money off the peripheral. If they can sell at GBP30 at a profit, they might be willing to bundle it with Elites (or even arcades) at no extra cost.

I'm certain that will be the case. The issue is, Microsoft may have say, dropped the hardware prices this year, or next year, otherwise. Instead they may be holding the price high, so when Natal comes along, they can drop it in and say "look, we threw it in for free!". Of course it wasn't really free, the 360 may have already been cheaper at any point had Natal never existed.

It seems to me MS probably would have gone to 149/249 this year. The fact they didn't makes me wonder at Natal's influence on the price, even in preparation.

 

[wco81]

So what are the high-profile titles with motion support? They going to wait until E3 to unveil them?

Or do they think they could put out anything, like the shallow demo that Wii Sports is, and have it move the hardware?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The question is whether the potential positive appeal of Natal outweighs the pricing issue. I do not know.

At this point in time I think the new audience is far more important than the core gamer. I think the core gamer wil have bought into HD buy now, on the whole. XB360's are pretty cheap at the entry level price. I don't believe there are many more people wanting to play "Call of Halo 5" who haven't bought a box, and the future of console sales will come from the wider audience, needing a wider market. That's the only way PS managed it before IMO. So a $100 XB360 won't generate loads more sales without a shift in content.

That's my guess, anyhow.

 

[obonicus]

So what are the high-profile titles with motion support? They going to wait until E3 to unveil them?

Or do they think they could put out anything, like the shallow demo that Wii Sports is, and have it move the hardware?

We might see something at GDC, otherwise at E3.

 

[AzBat]

We might see something at GDC, otherwise at E3.

CES is still a slim possibility. Depends on if MS wants to steal any thunder from any competitor announcements.

Tommy McClain

 

[obonicus]

Maybe see the final look of the product, but announce a bunch of new games at CES? I think even GDC is doubtful, considering this year.