Project Natal: The Next Step

Posted on Mon 27 Jul 2009 by Keira Peney under Design , Industry News .
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It wasn’t so long ago I talked about XTR, the single-camera input method. Not that much later, Xbox announced Project Natal, which takes the idea of motion-sensitive technology and takes it to the logical end.

Where one company leads, others are sure to follow (and sometimes overtake). The wiimote began the trend, and the end point will be … well, quite possibly all you’ll have to do is think what you want to happen - and it will.

In the meantime, motion-sensors are going to be the next big thing. In turn, game designers are going to be walking a strange line - on the one hand, the sense of immersion and virtual reality can be improved by having people ‘act out’ the role they are playing. On the other hand, the gap between what video game characters are capable of and what real people are capable of may have to be questioned. Sure, I can cope with running around pretending to shoot things - but I’m not sure I can execute drop kicks and saumersaults. It doesn’t take much except co-ordinated thumb movements to work the average game at the moment, but in the future how are the less physically able going to be able to cope with the range of movements that may well be required?

On the other hand, video games will quickly leave behind their couch potato status, and become a bonafide fitness and education tool. When a system can see exactly what I am doing wrong with my downward facing dog pose, or exactly why my golf balls always fly 50 miles straight up in the air, they can teach me how to fix those problems - all without expensive lessons that create a barrier for many people.

One thing is for sure - like DDR mats and the wii mote before it. Project Natal is going to bring yet another wave of non-gamers into the gaming domain. This can only be a good thing.

5 Responses to “Project Natal: The Next Step

Jo Iacovides Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm

I have to agree with how you feel about somersaults and the like… I’m not sure I’d really want to ‘act out’ something like Fable II either. Also, I think there may be certain games where we might want to keep that divide between the real and the virtual (mostly the more violent ones).

I can’t help thinking that what is likely to happen is a divergance with the old school ‘couch potato’ games that require little movement on the one hand and the newer fitness and education type games on the other. While it will be exciting to see what these new forms of control produce, I just don’t see more traditional game pads (or keyboards) disappearning entirely. Or at least not until we really can control everything through thought alone…

Jo Iacovides Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 5:26 pm

Actually this article explains what I was trying to say a lot better than I did.

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