Topic: Microsoft's Xbox Kinect - Nov 4th 2010

[BlackNMild2k1]

So FPS devs need to innovate? Love to see how that turns out.

Rail-shooters cometh..

You mean HD ports of Wii Rail shooters. everything must come full circle.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"everything must come full circle."

Eternal Darkness was right about EVERYTHING all along.

[EasyCure]

So FPS devs need to innovate? Love to see how that turns out.

Rail-shooters cometh..

You mean HD ports of Wii Rail shooters. everything must come full circle.

Christ, you're right!

"everything must come full circle."

Eternal Darkness was right about EVERYTHING all along.

Should I start hacking up my servants with a broadsword?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

You think you have servants?  You must be insane.

[BlackNMild2k1]

You think you have servants?  You must be insane.

Their in his head

He'll just be cutting out the crazy parts of his own mind. no need to worry.
Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

[EasyCure]

You think you have servants?  You must be insane.

Their in his head

He'll just be cutting out the crazy parts of his own mind. no need to worry.
Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

I miss cutting out those crazy monsters and prevent the end of the world/HD On-rail shooters via project Natal?

see how i got things back on track?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Studio reveals it’s looking for creative minds beyond of game design

Rare’s approach to project Natal may not be as game-centric as initially believed.

A recent recruitment ad campaign revealed that the UK developer is looking for new staff that are not particularly versed in game design.

“Your experience in games design is not necessarily important,” it read.

“We’re also not too bothered about what roles you have had and what games you have worked on. What we really need is the ability to think differently, think ahead and challenge the rules of what an interactive experience can be.”

The advertisements were found on Toy News, a trade publication for the toy business sector, which in itself compounded suggestions Rare’s Natal efforts will go beyond traditional game design.

“Rare is at the forefront of bringing Natal to life,” said the group, ”and is hard at work creating cool new experiences.”

Seems to me like Rare is having troubles coming up with gaming ideas for Natal and is reaching out to non-gamers for a fresh look and new ideas from an outside perspective.

[Deguello]

If you want a good idea to what Natal will bring to games, just imagine playing every DS game with only stylus control, yet no tactile sensation.  Whereas DS games had digital touch control with game and scenario-specific interpretations, Natal will be completely interpretative controls with further interpretations for the game.

That doesn't sound too good, does it?  Some DS and Wii games do a bad job of guessing what you meant by what you did, imagine Natal trying to guess what you did and what you meant by what it thought you did.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Using Natal is like swirling your arms in a vat of mashed potatoes.

huh

[EasyCure]

...Toy News.

NATAL IS TEH KIDDIE TOYZ HURR HURR HURR

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Good find.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Take Two does for MS's Xbox360 what it refused to even consider for Nintendo's Wii

Take-Two CEO Ben Feder told investors during the company’s Q3 2009 financial call today that motion sensor kits are currently in-house and in the hands of the development team as we speak.

“Natal motion-sensors - yes we have dev kits, yes we’re working on them,” he said. “Obviously, we can’t comment on games we haven’t announced. But those dev kits are embedded in all of our studios, or just about all of our studios, and everybody’s working with them to try to figure out new ways in which we can innovate and create the kind of content that this company is famous for.

“So yes, we’re working on it.”

At least we think Feder said that. There were too many people adding their input on the question at the time. We will have another listen just to be sure.

Anyway, later on during the call, it was clarified that Sony’s motion controller was currently in-house as well.

So that’s good to know.

[Smash_Brother]

I find it infuriating that companies are singing the praises of this crap while still badmouthing the Wii.

Natals will collect more dust than Wiis ever did.

[D_Average]

I find it infuriating that companies are singing the praises of this crap while still badmouthing the Wii.

Natals will collect more dust than Wiis ever did.

But you're not seeing the big picture!  You can hang your cat in front of Natal, take its picture, and then ride on top of it to fight crime.

[EasyCure]

I find it infuriating that companies are singing the praises of this crap while still badmouthing the Wii.

Natals will collect more dust than Wiis ever did.

Seconded.

If there's one thing that really gets under my skin its hypocrisy. I can't stand it. If Take-Two just came out and said "yeah we're excited to work with Natal kits because we can innovate IN HIGH DEFINITION, something we just can't do on the wii" then I'd be ok with it. As it stands, people like this are just hypocrite scumbags.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I now wonder what Natal failure rates will be like compared to Wii Remote failure rates.

/Pondering failure rates of failure rates

[EasyCure]

I now wonder what Natal failure rates will be like compared to Wii Remote failure rates.

/Pondering failure rates of failure rates

I'm more interested in what the players failure rates will be, cuz this comes in two flavors:

You got your OMGCASUALZ who'll be playing like hyperactive retarded monkeys and start breaking everything around them (including Natal of course).

And you'll have your uber-schlubs who'll do as little movement as possible, get sick of Natal-enabled games and leave the thing collecting dust until something clogs something else and when they do decide to turn it on (in order to take a picture of their penis and ride it in an adventure game) it'll overheat and die.

[Smash_Brother]

So if the details I'm hearing are correct....

Mistake #1: Launching Natal as an add-on peripheral instead of rebranding a new Xbox line with it.

Are they insane? Nintendo pondered launching the remote as a GC add-on peripheral, but wisely decided that this would require an entire rebranding to get the effect they were looking for, hence the Wii. If it doesn't ship with the system, no 3rd party in their right mind is going to seriously develop for it (without moneyhats, I suppose).

Mistake #2: $200 pricetag!

Answer to a rhetorical question: yes, they clearly ARE insane. Not only will Natal be a separate peripheral that must be purchased independent of a $300 console, but it'll cost another $200 as well.

After the moneyhats stop, no developer is going to want to work with this thing due to the extreme amount of risk involved. A separate peripheral that is DESTINED to wind up being relegated to the status of "gimmick" that costs $200 and doesn't have the necessary rebranding to get it into homes as a family-friendly device.

I mean, wow, just...WOW...

Maelstrom was completely correct in his discussion of the "Birdman Fallacy". Here, MS is watching Nintendo do extremely well and can only come away with the conclusion that it must be due to the fact that people love jumping around like idiots while playing games. Ergo, if they release a controller that lets people jump around like idiots, they'll be successful, too.

They have absolutely no grasp of the fact that it was the complete rebranding of the Wii as something that the non-gaming populace would want to own that made it so successful. Nor do they grasp the fact that, after the novelty wears off, motion control isn't a selling point for games.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

They have to be insane enough to make up an expensive peripheral that would succeed in Bizarro World in order to compete with Nintendo's reality.

[SixthAngel]

At the risk of bringing up Malstrom again I think he was right about Natal, it is smoke.

This isn't a serious attempt at anything, its throwing up smoke to try to grab a little attention from the media and the competition.  It will either be delayed indefinitely or sent to die on purpose with only the minimum of support.  It is too ridiculous to be anything else.

[Caterkiller]

Can someone explain to me how traditional games are supposed to work? With Wii I knew right off the bat how they would work. But for a real FPS, how would one travel around aim and shoot? Would they make games dumb enough to hold the 360 controller and have motion with your body at the same time?

Last question is Natal a real word? Or are they trying to be the new Wii, like Wii was to "mamasay-mamasaw-mamakusa" or "ramalamadingdong"?

[King of Twitch]

These are excellent questions.

Depending on how you google, Natal is...

-region of southeast Africa on the Indian Ocean
-Seaport and city, northeastern Brazil
-of, relating to, or present at birth

Meaning... Microsoft Natal will be aimed at gamers who aren't even able to hold a controller without slobbering all over it. I guess it cuts down on nasty online swear-fests.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"Can someone explain to me how traditional games are supposed to work?"

They're not (they've already shown it doesn't work).  They're supposed to make "brand new experiences" for the demanding and less demanding audiences.

[BlackNMild2k1]

SEGA is Jumping In early

Next year Sony and Microsoft will both be introducing their new motion technologies, which were unveiled back at E3. Publishers and developers have been taking a hard look at both Project Natal and Sony's motion controller, trying to decide how to support them. We've yet to hear any concrete game announcements for the technologies yet. However, speaking to IndustryGamers recently, Sega West President Mike Hayes said that it's likely we'll be hearing from Sega on their projects in early 2010.

"We'd like to think that in early 2010 we'll be making announcements about both of those platforms," he noted.

Hayes said that projects right now are basically in an R&D phase. "We have our ideas and we know what we want to do, but the technology is pretty new, particularly with Natal, so we've got to get to grips with the technology and see if it can do what we want it do," he said, adding about the experimentation, "I kind of think of it as the land of bunsen burners and test tubes."

Take-Two also just talked about dev kits for Natal and Sony's technology being "embedded" in nearly all their studios. We're very curious to see what all these game companies cook up for the new motion platforms.

[Smash_Brother]

Sega also jumped in early on the N-Gage.

But wow, this is irritating. So all these developers have given up on the Wii but are convinced that shittier versions of motion control on HD consoles are where it's at? There just aren't any words for this...

It doesn't take more than a bit of poking around to understand why a lot of people have fallen away from the Wii: people don't like to move around a lot while gaming. It was fun for a while, but making people flail around was a novelty and it has already overstayed its welcome.