The Future of Gaming: Motion Controllers Part 2

There were new motion technologies shown off at E3 this year for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The technology that Microsoft showed off though is a bit more elaborate then Sony or Nintendo's. The initial video that was put out that showed some of the concepts Microsoft has for using this new technology sets a fairly high bar for the final product. If they are able to achieve what their aiming for (which you can see right here) then it could change gaming quite a bit. But as we've seen in the past, executing new technologies in gaming doesn't always work out as planned.

The name of Microsoft's new motion control technology is called project natal. The name might change by the time the product is final but for now that is its codename. The Natal Unit itself consists of a sensor bar that will sit above or below your television just like the Wii sensor bar. Unlike the Wii sensor bar, the Natal unit contains an rgb camera, a multi-array microphone, a depth sensor, and runs its own proprietary software.

With all those technologies crammed into the Natal device, the unit will be capable of facial and voice recognition. It will be able to track up to four different people apparently down to their individual fingers, and under any lighting conditions. Unlike Sony and Nintendo's motion controllers Natal doesn't use any sort of controller, just the camera. The user will use only their own body to manipulate the game. On one side this hasn't really been done before and could open up some exciting new possibilities. On another side having no physical controller in hand could make it impossible to play a more serious game where speed and precision are required.

At E3 they showed Natal off with some tech demos. They showed off some regular tech demo-y things such as painting using just your hands, and voice recognition. They also had a game where you hit a ball into some blocks akin to Breakout. Aside from these predictable tech demos, some developers have had the opportunity to work with natal for a few months prior to E3 and were able to produce a playable demo to show off. The first of I will mention is a demo of the racing game Burnout. In the demo you used your hands to steer like you were holding an invisible steering wheel, and you move your foot forward for gas and backward for brakes. Just about all of the people who were allowed to demo it at E3 have said that it works how it should.

The Breakout and Burnout demos were both played on the Jimmy Fallon show (which you can check out here). The demo looked good except for the fact that anyone that played had to wear an orange jumpsuit. I don't foresee Microsoft making its customers wear one when the final product is released, but it still is a little disheartening. The most impressive demo shown of Natal is the one created by Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios. His demo for an apparent upcoming game featured a young british boy named Milo. You could literally reach into Milo's 3D world and interact with him. An example of this is when they showed someone drawing an image of a fish and "handing" it to Milo by letting the camera scan it. The image of the fish was then created in the 3D world in real time as Milo was handed it and he was able to recognize the image. Milo was also able to show off advanced voice recognition which could sense varying emotion in a persons voice.

The Natal unit does show its early age at this stage in the game though, as the playable demos it accompanied used a rather large box rather then just the sleek sensor unit that they were showing off. There's no set release date as of yet but its expected sometime next year.