Microsoft Unveils Project Natal at E3

I'm not much of a gamer, but I do enjoy hacking my Homebrew Wii, messing with SPORE, tinkering with the Crysis Sandbox Editor, and I had a fleeting fetish with Bioshock ( I'm over that till Bioshock 2). I do however follow the game industry and I love to watch other people play. I love to see the limits of realtime being pushed, and the amazing imagery. You always get to see a great deal of this kind of innovation at E3.

There are always events that stand out in my mind whether at SIGGRAPH, CES or E3. This year there was, what I would have to consider, a pivotal moment in gaming. This was at the Microsoft press conference. They showed a future technology call Project Natal. It was stunning to see what MS has in store for users down the road. In an effort to combat the interactivity of the Wii remote, MS has gone several steps beyond the Wii with Project Natal. In essence PN turns a user's body into a remote. On the surface this seems really cheesy. Its been done before as far back as the Amiga. PN is lightyears different. PN has facial recognition, voice recognition, and 3d motion tracking of the entire body... for multiple persons no less! Your Xbox will recognize you over your other family members, you'll be able to recreate that cool computer interactivity in the movie "Minority Report", and bark voice commands at your Xbox.

Speaking of "Minority Report", Steven Spielberg was at the MS press conference touting project Natal... so you know there must be something to it right?





I am really oversimplifying the technology.


They showed a bunch of lame demos using the technology. The demos gave a glimpse into what was possible, but really it was a little dull and lackluster. There was one exception. The demo that truly proved the potential of PN was from Peter Molyneux, founder of Lionhead Studios. This video shows the potential for PN when in the hands of creative people vs programmers. That's not a slight to programmers it's just a Right/Left brain thing. In fact, the heart of Project Natal is in software. Check out this realtime demo below.








To put it in context, here are the rest of the E3 demos regarding Project Natal. This one is the coporate MS video type commercial for Project Natal.






This one will surely give Wii Fit fanatics a run for their money ... and cardio.





This last demo is cute... if your drunk and at a party, but it's no Photoshop.




Reading between the lines you won't see PN until 2010 sometime. Certainly not in 2009. Stay tuned...