TGS 2009: Japanese developers love on Project Natal
by Ben Gilbert 
{ Sep 25th 2009 at 7:44PM } 
Above, we've dropped Capcom's Keiji Inafune. He sees Natal as an "enhancement" rather than a replacement, saying the current controllers prevent game developers from creating "games without limits." This of course begs the question: What happens when you combine Garry's Mod and Project Natal? Our guess: Madness.
Peep developers from Tecmo, Namco, Kojima Productions, Konami, From Software and Sega extolling Natal's many virtues after the break.
Yozo Sakagami, Namco
Keisuke Kikuchi, Tecmo
Kenichiro Imaizumi, Kojima Productions
Kenichiro Nagoshi, Sega
Masanori Takeuchi, From Software
Naoki Maeda, Konami
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Maverick Saturn (Igor) @ Sep 25th 2009 7:52PM
They look forced....why are they all in a grey room with no pictures, colour or happiness? :D
I'm kidding of course, but still, it is rather funny
U U D D L R L R B A SELECT START @ Sep 25th 2009 7:58PM
Masanori Takeuchi: Why are you doing this? Please, I just want to see my family.
Shadowy Figure: No worries Mr. Takeuchi, your family is fine. And they will stay that way, as long as you read from this teleprompter.
Maverick Saturn (Igor) @ Sep 25th 2009 8:14PM
Shadowy figure: See here Mr Toshihiro Nagoshi, your daughter is on the phone
Daughter (On the other end of the phone): Daddy! Save me!
Toshihiro Nagoshi: Please, let her go, this has nothing to do with her
Shadowy figure: You can save her, just talk about how great Natal is and how it will change the future, thats all.
Toshihiro Nagoshi: No...I can't
Daughter (On the other end of the phone): Daddddddy!!
Toshihiro Nagoshi: Okay, I'll do it
Ridgecity @ Sep 25th 2009 8:52PM
I'm glad Microsof is using tons of money this gen. I sincerely hope they deliver some cool 1st gen motion games and cement the controller in gamers.
Ballistic H @ Sep 25th 2009 8:55PM
Wow, how much Microsoft paid them?
Caveman @ Sep 26th 2009 12:03AM
@ Ridgecity
It's bad netiquette to reply to a post that has nothing to do with what the original poster said.
Ashitaka @ Sep 25th 2009 7:56PM
Dear Joystiq:
Get rid of the Joystiq "ad" in your videos. It even overlaps the subtitles.
That is all.
Ashitaka @ Sep 25th 2009 8:16PM
Ok, so it doesn't overlap when in full screen mode...
BUT I can still complain about the annoying nikon camera ads. I click X and it takes 1 fucking long second to close thus making me lose the subtitle I was trying to read.
Stevetrop @ Sep 25th 2009 8:48PM
Seriously thats irritating as shit. I mean its not just the joystiq logo cutting off the words at the end of some sentences. They also past in game advertisements in the way of the subtitles.
What next are we going to have a halo odst add in the middle of the video with a soldier walking around and shooting at elites.
Mr.Mr. @ Sep 26th 2009 1:56AM
Dear Joystiq,
Pay no attention to Ashitaka's request.
Can you make the 'Joystiq' logo larger to I don't have to read the subtitles? Better yet, smack a giant Google ad right across it.
Ahhh... that's better. Ok, what was he saying now?
The touch, the feel of cotton. The fabric of our lives.
U U D D L R L R B A SELECT START @ Sep 25th 2009 7:57PM
I'm really excited for this. I hope project Natal can capture motion nuances as small as the movements of my thumbs. That way I could get a peripheral to use with it, something comprised of maybe two "directional toggle sticks" and several "buttons" which would be used to input movements and commands into the game.
Shadsy @ Sep 25th 2009 8:03PM
I don't think it's able to detect beyond open/closed hand. But some of the enhancements could be things like actually punching for a melee attack, head tracking, squad hand signals, or controlling parts of your character on screen (someone brought up the idea of being able to dance in Rock Band). THAT's the kind of stuff that Natal could really bring out that'd set it apart from most other motion control setups.
U U D D L R L R B A SELECT START @ Sep 25th 2009 8:33PM
Sorry, forgot to close that tag.
/sarcasm
There we go.
makimak22 @ Sep 25th 2009 10:52PM
What's the function of the middle finger?
mahouneko @ Sep 26th 2009 4:19AM
@makimak22:
I think it is
/fu
Abi @ Sep 25th 2009 8:01PM
It's apparent Microsoft is taking this quite seriously. Like Sony did with bluray, Micro' is taking a stand with this and pushing this piece of hardware. It might not yield the same results as bluray but still a good step in an innovative direction.
waves @ Sep 25th 2009 8:08PM
If they could use XBLA to make a bunch of wacky japanese games for natal that would definitely get my attention. Right now the PSEye thing seems cooler just for the accurate mouse pointing ability.
Chillski @ Sep 25th 2009 8:08PM
if microsoft offered to pay u thousands of dollars to make a 5 minute video would u turn it down? didnt think so....
Saria the Cat @ Sep 25th 2009 11:29PM
I don't know, Japanese people aren't really the bribey type (they don't even accept tips there!) If anything, Microsoft reps probably just went through all the different businessman etiquette to ask these company people to speak about Project Natal. They obviously will want to be polite and say nice things, but that's not to say they aren't speaking things they actually believe. They probably DO believe Project Natal is cool, they just aren't being rude and mentioning any of the downsides (e.g. "Wtf are we going to do with it?")
Maverick Saturn (Igor) @ Sep 25th 2009 8:15PM
I really hope Natal is implemented well, I can see lot's of potential for it, it just needs to be used the right way.
Raffi @ Sep 25th 2009 8:22PM
The hardware sounds really cool, I don't think there's any consumer device with a depth sensing camera. It ends up functioning like a cheap 3D laser scanner.
Gabriel @ Sep 25th 2009 8:24PM
You know why they love it, its the oodles of cash Microsoft is throwing there way to develop for it. Its funny how when the wiimote came out everybody was like shaking around your going to look stooopid, but with this its like epileptic seizure motion coooolz.
chris @ Sep 25th 2009 8:25PM
Why is this any different from what the eye can do? Don't tell me cause it has it's own processor when the cell can handle everything the 360+natal can. It's stupid and nothing is concrete. Stop talking about it and show me something.
Extinction @ Sep 25th 2009 11:01PM
Its not different. Sony has shown full body tracking on PS eye as well
Sadistic Freek @ Sep 26th 2009 3:31AM
Look, here's an easy way to tell it's different. Sony hasn't said "Pffsshhh, we already can do that with the PS Eye." Try to be a SMART fanboy at least.
chris @ Sep 26th 2009 9:07AM
Funny, cause it's already has done or showen in tech demos every thing natal can, maybe not with the same tech but the same basic shit, making them the same. Ass hat. Try being a little informed be for calling someone a fanboy.
Sadistic Freek @ Sep 26th 2009 4:54PM
Where? Where are the tech demos that show everything that Natal can do? Please enlighten me. You say everything, so show me EVERYTHING that Natal can do. It can't, not alone. But show me these tech demos you say I need to be informed of, where the PS Eye, alone, which is the argument here, can do what Natal can do. Don't be an "ass hat" yourself chris. Effing bitch.
sc00by_y00 @ Sep 27th 2009 4:37AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gOVj_I5npA
There it is project natal debunked, basically everything demoed about the natal the ps eye and eye toy has already done...
woohoo ...
NOT ME @ Sep 25th 2009 8:31PM
I think what people are afraid of is that, this can similar or even better than what the wii can do...and theres a slight chance that there will be a decent flow of good games for it
Raffi @ Sep 25th 2009 8:35PM
It's several orders of magnitude more complex. The Eye is just a standard off-the-shelf webcam with some basic computer vision software that tracks blobs of color.
From here: http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2009/06/project-natal.html and Wikipedia:
Natal is a RGB camera and depth sensing camera, technology never before in a consumer product, that measures time-of-flight of IR pulses, and proprietary software with high performance human tracking algorithms that do 48 joints per person for multiple people, as well as face recognition, voice recognition, accoustic localization, and ambient noise cancellation via microphone array.
DeepFriedSushi @ Sep 26th 2009 3:00AM
you know sony fantards are pretty damn pathetic, that they down vote you. funny that there are more of them visiting this topic than xbox owners.
i dont understand why people act like this you know that had natal been developed by sony these same idiots would be gushing all over it... :/
joeybeast @ Sep 25th 2009 8:48PM
Very clever marketing by MS
Orion @ Sep 25th 2009 9:12PM
Didn't the wii do videos of devs clamoring about the Wii when it first was announced? How is this any different. I remember hearing about "awesome" ideas in the Wii videos that were never done. In fact, we all know how third parties used "large amounts" of resources to make their mini games.
Once again, I'll believe it when I see it. Talk is cheap. I was fooled to buy one console because of it, I won't do that again.
chris @ Sep 25th 2009 8:58PM
Okay so natal track depth on it's own, that's why Sony has the glowing ball, everything else is just software. Able to run on the ps3 and eye. Not really that much different and still nothing that cant be done with the eye. So tell me again how this will change gaming? Face recognition has already been shown on the eye, in a tech demo. Voice recognition is just software and none of that's been any good so far. ambient noise cancellation via microphone array is already in the eye, it works well, I use the eye as my head set for online games. I'm not sure about acoustic localization. But what they fail to understand is you'll need tactical feed back for most games. I'm not going to say natal is going to fail, but it's not going to be what Microsoft want us to believe.
Bane @ Sep 25th 2009 9:05PM
I'm sure you know everything.
Natal will blow the Eye away. Ur obviously a PS3 fanboy.
Orion @ Sep 25th 2009 9:10PM
The guy was only saying he doesn't see technology that blows his mind that's much different than the PS Eye that's rotting on store shelves.
Now, regarding your fanboy comment, I'll repeat something I've had to say before to another nuance...:
"Why is it that fanboys always get a thrill off of calling non-fanboys fanboys. It's like they're saying "HAHA you're me! That must SUCK!""
Orion @ Sep 25th 2009 9:10PM
Also, the fact you spelled "you're" as "Ur" pretty much confirms my theory.
chris @ Sep 25th 2009 9:17PM
orion- thanks man, at lest someone can read.
Bane- you're the only one showing your fanboy colors here. Add something to the conversation to say why it will blow the eye away, or keep your mouth shut. So far i've seen a list of games from Sony, and a list of pocket padded developers for MS with nothing to show.
Raffi @ Sep 25th 2009 9:55PM
You're just writing off the software differences like its not a big deal. Being able to track 48 joints on the human body in 3-D, in real-time is a HARD problem. No one else has achieved this level of performance in computer vision, not even in academia, and here it is, soon to be a commercial product. Plus because of the specialized hardware, it could theoretically do it in a pitch-black room regardless of lighting or anything in the environment. It's not even just about video games, its advancing computer science significantly in the area of computer vision.
PSEye tracks single points of light, Natal tracks your whole friggin body and in demos can map it 1:1 onto a 3D avatar. And no doubt whatever props you're holding. Throwing it into the same bucket as the Wiimote and this PS3 motion controller is doing it a disservice.
chris @ Sep 25th 2009 9:42PM
Trust me, I understand the 48 points of movement, but when is that going to be used? Almost never? Is ther anything anywere that says it can be used in all lighting levels? If so please point me to it. And untill we see games that prove it's worth then it will sit right next to waggle and the pmc as far as gaming goes. Besides it's not even really their tech, just something they snatched up.
Extinction @ Sep 25th 2009 11:05PM
Sony has shown full body tracking on PSeye before.
Someone was keeping a soccerball in the air by bouncing it on their knees
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 26th 2009 1:59AM
Saying what it can do in theory is different than the execution. Have you seen the demos of Natal? It's not the best in the world at tracking if we go by the E3 demo and the Jimmy Fallon advertisement. Not saying it won't be awesome on some level but so far all we have is smoke and mirrors.
Badsies @ Sep 26th 2009 3:41PM
@ chris:
"The depth sensor consists of an infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor, and allows the Project Natal sensor to see in 3D under any ambient light conditions.[1][16] The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, with the Project Natal software capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, such as the presence of chairs.[17]"
Jono @ Sep 25th 2009 8:59PM
Where's the next Megaman Legends Inafune?! YOU SAID THERE WOULD BE MORE MEGAMAN LEGENDS
Orion @ Sep 25th 2009 9:07PM
Bottom line, we're going from waggle to very broad motions. The driving video, and others remind me of early Wii videos. While it was all very exciting at first, my Wii ended up collecting dust, boring me, and then being sold on eBay this year.
Because of Nintendo, quite honestly, I'm VERY doubtful about this and Playstation's controller. I'm not saying good things can't come from this, just that I don't think it's really going to differ THAT much from the Wii.
If they wanted to make a music game where you could throw something to an audience member from the stage on the Wii they could. Basically, we've had technology in the Wii that can do TONS more than it was actually pushed to do. But devs didn't do much more than just make cheap mini games with horrid motion controls that weren't fun and were needless.
Hardware can be a great thing, but if this is all talk like the Wii was (for third parties) count me NOT interested.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 26th 2009 2:04AM
Agree 100%
Wake me up when Natal, the Wii mote or Sony's motion controller works intuitive in a creative way on a game I want to play because it's a good game. Not a game I want to play simply because it has motion controls.
silverwolf761 @ Sep 25th 2009 9:16PM
Sega: "We can pursue all new avenues in destroying the Sonic franchise!"
xbox420king @ Sep 25th 2009 9:42PM
lol Thats pretty much a given.
Sadistic Freek @ Sep 26th 2009 3:40AM
That made me laugh... and cry... sad sad tears... so sad.
TheElderFrog @ Sep 25th 2009 9:20PM
this was done with the Wii when it was first announced but this one has a lot more devs:P
Natal shall be fun there is no doubt