Natal Changes The Way We Game

When the Nintendo Wii was launched in 2006, it revolutionized gaming. At least, we thought it would. Truth is, most of us didn’t do much more than play Wii Sports. Beyond that, the motion control was just a gimmick.

Meanwhile the Xbox 360 took off. With an unrivaled online community, popular games and an all-in-one approach to movies and music, the 360 positioned itself as the entertainment center of the last decade (before we get a flame war started in the comments, note that I said entertainment center, not video game system – that crown goes to the PS2).

But the guys and gals in Redmond weren’t content to rest on their laurels. A few days ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the upcoming release of an Xbox 360 add-on named Project Natal that features a whole new approach to motion control.

Natal integrates voice recognition with a 3 dimensional camera that can track a player’s every move. So if you were to shoot a basketball towards a hoop in the game, the camera will track the exact trajectory and velocity of your movements and replicate them on the screen. And without any kind of controller involved, unfortunate slips are no longer an issue.

Natal isn’t the first video gaming system to use a camera. The Playstation has long had the Eye Toy camera. But the Eye Toy was always just that: a toy. There were never any serious games because a regular camera can only see in 2-dimensional space. Think side to side. It could react to motion, but it couldn’t differentiate between different types of motion.

Natal’s 3 dimensional camera changes things completely because it has depth perception. It can tell when you lean backwards or step forwards. It can also tell the difference between your movements and any other motion in the room.
David Hufford has been on the Xbox team at Microsoft for over a decade now, and he’s adamant that this will be the most exciting year Xbox has had to date (big surprise, huh?) If you can tolerate the well polished marketing-speak, here he is explaining what Natal means for the Xbox going forward.

I was disappointed that Microsoft didn’t see fit to bring a demo to CES. There have been rumors that Natal has a problem with lag, but the rumors were based off of very early tests. We won’t know until later this year (no launch date yet) whether the problems still exist.

As cool as Natal is for video gaming, the thing that really excites me is the technology itself. A camera that can capture a 3 dimensional environment will have big implications for nearly all consumer electronics in the future. Think speakers that adjust their volume the farther you walk away from them. Or televisions that turn down their brightness when you’ve left the room. The possibilities are endless. I can’t wait to try it out.

Photo Credit: anasantos