CES 2010 Video: The Minds Behind Project Natal

You could use NATAL to lean around corners in a FPS without ever hitting a button

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looks awsome i wish it will come out NOW!!!

I think you walk, run, crouch and jump in place. As far as turning or deciding a direction, that can be done be which way your head is turned or mabye it can even do it by your eyes, like where you're looking... that would be creepy. FPS titles could do it by where you're aiming your fake gun..lol... if they can do it by eyes FPS games are going to change forever...lol (doubt it). Anyway it looks pretty awesome... I just want to see ome REAL GAMES being played... I guess we'll see shortly

lets worry about the turning when it comes out, i really like the natal for some unknown reason. its most likely going to be as pricey as a ps3 or the new phones out now. but something about this draws me in so much, lol

I've been thinking about too. How do you chose a direction, how do you walk?

I've been wondering something about project natal. How will you turn around in 3D games? Would you move your hand in the direction you want to turn?

i hope its not to good though, since i always miss out on these sort of things, i dont have an 360 and probaly never will

woah, look out nintendo!!!!!!!

fat people every were will hunt these people down...

please dont tell me there making shooter games on this like halo or cod and btw this is gonna punch wii right in the balls!

i hope this has nothing to do with halo reach

How will we play first person shooters? This really seems cool but every time I watch a new natal video I just get really freaked out that we won't have halo, CoD, or anything else on xbox. Maybe we will get futuristic goggles and a motion controlled gun! That way the goggles will make it feel like we're in a game!!! That might make it better so we can turn around and stuff!! Wait... how would you move? Say "Move forward ten feet!" to the voice box thing? Ugh this is just making my head hurt...

Jk. this looks pretty cool. Im sure its a bit pricey tho.

this is a government conspiracy man! Now the government will have cameras in our living rooms!

hope this wont be a disappointment like the wii but this looks a lot better

3d, project natal, man gaming is getting better and better

Although I am a hardcore gamer, it would be fun just to actually KICK the living crap out of a cocky old man! LOL

This will change gameing. eyetoy is a 2-D camera capturing the movements in its view. but natal captures a "3-D" view of you, this will be awesome. after natal i think things like the movie Gamer will happen

This should be great for when i buy a crap game and throw my controller into the wall lol

sounds good, i don;t consider this a casual game, it may look like one from the start, but this camera control feature will be put into other games as well, so try not to think about this title as a casual game, to me it looks fun though, i am not sure why some ppl hate this, the time of the controller is quickly going away, and that's fine by me...

FK The casual gamers, id like to see someone use this "PROJECT NATAL" yeah lame code name-- with a game like Resident Evil, or FF13.

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Good luck playing shooters with this thing guys.. if any backwards compatibility will be included.

i want it so bad!!! i have a wii and was so dissapointed...the games are so f..boring...maybe xbox make more fun games...to play it..maybe...they can do it right.

I had hoped they would have had more Natal news than just the release date, like more about the games being developed for it. But I guess we have to wait for E3 for that.

Damn...no more playing xbox in my chonies...

The potenial of this is off the charts!!! Sure they are not inventing the wheel or creating fire but If it works like they say it will (knowing microsoft it wont...well atleast the first couple of versions lol) but if they it works even slightly better that the wii this will def.. make xbox the system to get.. it already is a great system minus the some problems but this will put them over the top...now if only we can get a blu ray player (not to say my hi def player isnt making an awesome coaster lol)

ok, so whats the big deal here? Microsoft isnt inventing the wheel here. Motion cameras for game systems have been out for a long time. So what if this one is 'more accurate', I still dont remember those cameras being too popular with a lot of game support. To me, this already sounds like an overpriced peripherial that would entertain me for a solid twenty minutes, then I'll get bored and lazy and play a real game.

Microsoft just took two decent ideas 1 that was poorly done eye toy and and Wii motion controls which is fun id give a 7.5/10 put the ideas of the companies of sony and nitendo and made there own version of it which looks good. I just don't like how there controling the media claiming its new and inventive way and all these Ms fans are just eating it up like its the best thing since sliced bread. I own both consoles i prefer my Ps3 because of the bluray but its just like every other company takes an idea and makes it marketable by improving technologies that already exist project Natal is a knock off of the Motion Captureing Cameras of Avatar anyways

If natal works as it is advertised then I would be the first one to go and buy an X360. Although I am already a proud owner of PS3. No matter who does it - Nintendo, MS or Sony - but whoever gets it done right (as advertised) then that would indeed be a great day for gaming, much like when man stepped on the moon!

Wii Motion plus(with sensor bar), (WiiRemote has rumble and a speaker too tactile feedback/immersion), Wii Vitality Sensor, Wii Balance Board and I will mention Ubisofts camera jointly developed with Nintendo but I have no idea if that camera will be used for any other game besides Your Shape? Sony's PS3 "Sphere" aka Wand uses a combo of camera and infrared LEDS (it could be said its the Wii system turned on its head..only that it uses a more advanced camera(although I think it is only tracking infrared light of the LED Balls on the end of Sony wands(which is the same as Wiimote cam-correct me if I am wrong)...unlike specific infrared Wiimote cameras) and its claimed by many this will make it way the most accurate of all motion systems. So it is claimed. I guess devs will prove this with actual software eh? NATAL is completely different using camera only and also has Voice recog. They claim to track all parts of the body too....if it all works it highly advanced tech for sure....just the no controller thing is still raising a ? hm? One way or the other motion is here and here to stay. The Wii SUCESSFULLY started the ball rolling. What many called fad/gimmick now rules! Motion has showed the benfits it provides to gaming ...the immersion interactivity is undeniable! Lets see how far this will take us. One more thing...wether it is like to be admited or not this is a race....one of these MOTION systems will be dominant? OR NOT?....and well it is hard to say what will happen for sure.... We just have to wait and see...

You fellas b**** about anything and everything, this is an outstanding progress in the video game world. I'd like to play penalty kick with my friends in the living room without crashing anything, browse the my xbox without controller or fight the enemy myself if I have to. Or you guys are just hating because you're some Jabba with the controller in your hand and hate to move around.

i com home from a hectic day at work, i come home from gym having xercise, i come home from school where i also play footbal with my mate, i come home from my teniss club, and i want to enjoy som video games relaxing on sofa holding a gud joy pad in my hand! answer is vey simple, ps3, x360, pc

this is just stupid

But of course there is one huge potential problem, this all depends on if enough people buy Natal to get developers to support it.

The problem people seem to be having here is assuming that Natal will be the ONLY control method for ALL games its used on. Natal will be cool, when its used right. The EyeToy games were fun every now and again, when it worked. Natal can be used for those, but it WILL WORK because it tracks in infra-red so is not subject to what broke EyeToy games, poor lighting/furniture confusing it. It will certainly be handy to use it to login to live and to navigate the dashboard when you misplaced the remote/pad. Or you suddenly need to run to the crapper or answer the door, it automatically pauses the game/movie because it detects you left the TV. Maybe even games that can alter their AI skill level to be more fun, by detecting if you are calmly sat down or angrily stood up swearing about how unrealistic the latest FIFA AI is. Its the little things we do that (potentially at least) it could monitor to better tweak games to each person. It could possibly do basic head tracking so that when playing a FPS your viewpoint changes according to the angle of your head so you can look round corners without needing to press a button to do it. Basically, its those little things you will forget its doing, rather like how you forget how much surround sound adds to the game until you switch to stereo. I can totally see Natal being a useful tool, not as a control method as such, but as a way for games to monitor our reactions while playing with a normal control pad.

"So are they just going to talk about NATAL's tech or are we going to see some games " The thing isn't supposed to come out for almost a year. I wouldn't expect to see serious gameplay videos for it until, oh, maybe July at best. We might get some more insider leaked videos of games in development before then.

Props to M$ for trying to add value to the X360, but almost all of my buddies who have 360s are into gaming. I have a Wii, and few times we play bowling, for instance, or tennis, do you think we're standing up and using the proper sporting posture? No, we're sitting on our butts and flicking the controller with our wrists, barely moving a muscle. We play sports, but not in the living room. Everything I saw in the video looked like cheap time killers. Maybe M$ doesn't understand its own market? I hope they are not trying to emulate Nintendo's style, because all they did was sell a SH][TT ton of consoles and a mario game or two, but the 360, PS3, and PC are where the games are selling, and good ones at that.

I love how all those people "playing" the games are not "acting". Their big "natural" smiles let you know how much fun they are having. They feel like that are actually "in the game". I should work for Microsoft, because I can also talk a bunch of bulls**t about a product :)

@scotthulluk are you serious? eyetoy is one of the dumbest inventions in the history of mankind and your comparing it to natal? ffs the ps3 motion controll thing uses the eye toy and you need to hold on to f*king DlLDO lights to make it do the same thing!! and to everyone else sure its nice to relax after a hard day of work but the goal here is to get people off their fat @$$es and do something instead of working out their thumbs... good god its like people want to wind up 600lbs and stuck on the coutch doing nothing for the rest of their lives!!!!!! ok /endrant

what the hell is this.. its dume.....i dont want to jump and run and do all that crape, i only want to play relaxt......thank god i got ps3....xbox is just getting stupider by the second

lol and people thought playing with the wii remote would break something in there living room HAHAHA look at this. Id sure luv to play a FPS with this Microsoft :) And how big of space do we need? IDK ABOUT YOU, but after a long day from work, I like to sit on my a$$ and play some games, not this. lol

I agree, playing without a controller is far too lame. Even some of my friends who own xbox 360s think that this "project natal" is crap.

Eh and its kinda lame to play without a gamepad. I mean project natal is fun but dude,it just isn't right for me...

Still looks pretty lame. The thought of steering a car, having conversations with a virtual little boy(yikes), spastically flapping my arms and legs around to hit balls, and painting pictures all without a controller really doesn't sound good to me. The thought of vocal and facial recognition some pretty cool, but how often will that be applied in games? Get ready for a flood of shovelware, the same that has unfortunately plagued the Wii.

I can't believe M$ have conned so many sane people into believing this is new and amazing. The EyeToy was out like 7 years ago!!

I agree, some games are better suited to sitting on the couch, but this tech opens and refreshes other genres. Imagine a BioWare-style RPG, where you're actually talking to your party members and physically handing them gifts or directing them in combat. I see two big pluses for this: 1) better potential immersion in game worlds 2) I don't mind the non-gamer games that will come with this because that's what will help sell it to my wife. She's a total non-gamer, but she watched the Natal videos, and she wanted to participate ... "now we can share everything!"

one thing that would be good is if they included an option on all natal games to just play with a normal xbox 360 controller

natal looks amazing... i really hope it doesnt turn into a cheap gimmick like it did on the wii (not super smash bros, zelda, etc.) but it really looks like they will make this work