Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[Silent_Buddha]

Arc requires the camera to see the controller to guage distance. It's as dependent on the FOV as Natal. As is Wiimote, which, if it's using the IR sensor to determine distance, needs to be a minimum distance from the TV.

As for kids so young they eat the controller, why even write them computer games?! Aren't there othe activities they'd rather enjoy that will be generally more developmentally focussed? If you want computer games for < toddlers, you'd really want a specialist controller with multi-material touch pads and widgets IMO.

Yes, but often they see their older siblings playing and way to "play" also. And if you don't watch them, they sometimes lose interest/forget why they wanted the controller/or whatever reason and start gnawing on the controller.

At least with Natal or something along those lines, if they see older brother jumping around waving their arms around, they'll try to do it also, even if they might be too young to do so.

Kids are a never ending adventure.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

The easy way out is to give them another controller (or a lookalike) to play.
You can also use the controller to teach them the concept of "taking turns" while the player stay undisturbed.

Having them jump around in front of the camera may confuse a camera game (e.g. Golf, Tennis, blah)... unless you drag them "out of the picture".

They have their pros and cons.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The easy way out is to give them another controller (or a lookalike) to play.

OMG, I can't believe I hadn't throught of that. Now to see if I can get a modeler friend of mine to make me some.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

Yap... or pony up (what is it ?) $50 for another Wiimote+ or Arc controller. Natal may eventually have one too.

Then instead of teaching them to take turn, you teach them how to share in a game. [size=-2]Oh my daddy-hood is showing[/size]

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Having them jump around in front of the camera may confuse a camera game (e.g. Golf, Tennis, blah)...

Natal shouldn't be affected by this. if it is, it's lost 50% of its fab-factor!

Yap... or pony up (what is it ?) $50 for another Wiimote+ or Arc controller. Natal may eventually have one too.

I'm sure you could buy a dead controller of eBay sold 'for parts' or somesuch are a cheapo price. Even a DS2, just take the cable out.

 

[patsu]

Natal shouldn't be affected by this. if it is, it's lost 50% of its fab-factor!

Probably depends on the game. Will see how it goes. It may take up more processing before the system rejects the additional "players". The camera won't be able to filter out the point clouds on its own.

I'm sure you could buy a dead controller of eBay sold 'for parts' or somesuch are a cheapo price. Even a DS2, just take the cable out.

Gah... if that, I'd rather get a real one, or fake something up from his toy chest for free. No need to pay for shipping and the additional hassle. In any case, I don't think it's a big deal as long as developers and marketers apply the technologies suitably.

I'm interested to experiment with some sort of pre K to 12 games using the same gadget though (Wii, Natal or Arc)

 

[patsu]

GameTrailer has a good episode on Natal:
http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/bonusround/401

Patchter implied that a company (he guessed MS-funded) may have gotten finger tracking working, and also suggested a few cool Natal game ideas and UI. He saw a working Natal UI prototype. Segment starts at around 41:45 (way at the end).

Guess we will see an update on all 3 controllers soon.

 

[LightHeaven]

GameTrailer has a good episode on Natal:
http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/bonusround/401

Patchter implied that a company (he guessed MS-funded) may have gotten finger tracking working, and also suggested a few cool Natal game ideas and UI. He saw a working Natal UI prototype. Segment starts at around 41:45 (way at the end).

Guess we will see an update on all 3 controllers soon.

Yeah, he says there's now finger tracking, and that as a whole the tech is more advanced than at E3, lessy lag and all...

Now, is he a trustyworthy person or he is as reliable as his predictions?

 

[Crossbar]

In Best Buy and other stores yes. It wasn't something I was particularly interested in spending money on at the time however. This was before I regularly watched nephews and nieces for relatives. And those are the kiddo's that I now buy most of my casual stuff for.

Well, the Eyetoy games didn´t have a long lasting appeal to kids from my experience. After the sensation of watching themself on the TV screen had worn off and they had played through all the different mini-games I can´t recall that they asked to play them again.

This looks like a typical EyeToy game:

Maybe the added precision of Natal will do wonders to the experience, I guess we will find out.

If anything has primed the market for Natal it is the Wii, in my opinion. I´ve seen kids playing Sport Resorts for hours and hours.

 

[thop]

Microsoft not fully committed, or, more likely, they need full horsepower for the game.

"Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind," Bungie said.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/106/1065361p1.html

 

[Rotmm]

Microsoft not fully committed

Not fully committed to what?

 

[ShadowRunner]

Id say its more that they cant think of much natal will add to the game beyond gimicky things you will never want to use. It doesnt make sense to shoehorn natal support into games where it doesnt fit, and the extra processing needed to support it would be just another negative point towards the descision that its not worthwhile.

 

[Crossbar]

Id say its more that they cant think of much natal will add to the game beyond gimicky things you will never want to use. It doesnt make sense to shoehorn natal support into games where it doesnt fit, and the extra processing needed to support it would be just another negative point towards the descision that its not worthwhile.

Pretty much, and the chance of adding Natal support to say FPS games (like looking around corners) went from small to basically nill the moment they removed the CPU from Natal.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Microsoft is seriously positioning Natal as their first-attempt market assault on the casual "Wii" crowd. I think if anything, this confirmation by Bungie and the removal of the custom chip in Natal just proves to confirm that.

Anyone looking for head-tracking in their favourite existing franchises are pining for some real dissappointment.

Whether MS does make attempts at developing or financing more hardcore Natal-specific games is really anyone's guess though.... at the moment I'm certainly not convinced.

 

[obonicus]

Wasn't it clear from the start that Reach wouldn't use Natal? In retrospect, though, they probably shouldn't have had Kudo Tsunoda going 'sure, yep, we can do that with Natal', though.

 

[patsu]

[size=-2]Wow, you guys are not amazed by accurate finger tracking.[/size]

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It could be amazing, but I'll wait and see first! If it's just finger gestures for example, though a form of finger tracking it wouldn't really cut the mustard.

 

[patsu]

Patchter seems very impressed and enthusiastic. I guess we'll have to wait and see again.

 

[ShadowRunner]

He wasnt 100% sure it was natal tech he was seeing, though he did end up assuming so. Was being demoed by a company other than MS. Probably was natal but could be another product entirely or a company looking for investors/licensees. Do we know what company it was? It was at CES he saw it i believe.

EDIT: transcript of the comments pachter made.

Michael Pachter said: I saw a private company at CES who I'm not gonna to name becuase I don't wanna burn anybody but, I am convinced that they're making the camera for Natal. It was SO much better than what I saw with Natal and when I asked them, "are you, are you sor-, are they (lol) sorts to you guys?" they said, "we can't talk about our partnerships." I am convinced I've seen it and it's -

Geoff Keighley said: And it's progressed?

Michael Pachter said: oh my god

Geoff Keighley said: So even better than what we saw at E3 last year?

Michael Pachter said: OH my god

Geoff Keighley said: Really?

Michael Pachter said: So yes, all this little micro...move. Now again, I saw it with things like do a presentation and put your body into the presentation. So think about the weatherman standing in front of the green screen.
Turning any room into a green screen - that's kinda cool. And they were talking about using that for film editing so you could actually make movies and create your background on your PC and put live action, very cool

Geoff Keighley said: Really?

Michael Pachter said: But pretty well done i mean, seriously well done. Um, I did, I did (saw a putty cat?), saw another application on this thing which was the equivalent of the ducks, the rubber ducks falling in the bath tub except, when I was casting the ducks there was a shadow on my hand and they bounced reea, it was very very cool.
So I think, again I'm not the creative guy, but a ton of stuff you can do with this thing that none of us have even thought about. I don't know if it'll all be there at launch but I think it's kind of cool - I think people are gonna want it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well what we know of Natal so far had us discussing how it couldn't track fingers as the margin of error is too great. So this'd have to be a considerable improvement in the tech, presumably on the software side, or a workaround like having the camera closer to the fingers, or some other tech entirely.