Marc Whitten, Microsoft's general manager of Xbox 360, has claimed the number of buttons in your living room would "send a chill down your spine."
"If you counted the number of buttons in your living room, it would send a chill down your spine," explains Whitten. "A lot of people can play games amazingly well, but others feel locked out if games involve a bunch of triggers and buttons."
As you can imagine, this wasn't just a random and off-the-cuff solitary statement. His point was illustrating how Natal will help break down the barriers of entry to gaming.
"But Natal isn't just about gaming," Whitten continues. "It's about all living room experiences. Imagine a sporting event. Natal could know which team you're for because it sees your jersey, or knows you thought a bad call was made when you yell 'boo.' It learns about you and gets smarter to create a more tailored entertainment experience."
Having looked into this further i have estimated that by 2012, the world will collapse upon itself due to the mass amount of buttons that are in every household. FACT.
Having looked into this further i have estimated that by 2012, the world will collapse upon itself due to the mass amount of buttons that are in every household. FACT.
Will it learn when I'm just about ready to jerk-off and automatically pull up my favorite porn site??
But seriously some things shouldn't become too advanced. Having a computer know every little thing about you seems very disturbing. Plus having Natal recognise your favorite sports team is pretty stupid. Seems like a novelty as opposed to something practical and useful.
Also why should a computer monitor every little thing you do?? This article is talking about something a little more sophisticated than Natal. 3D cameras all over the house to watch for motion commands. Microphones in every room in the house that are constantly on to listen for voice commands. Constantly watching to 'learn' about how you live your life. Very creepy and quite the invasion of privacy, even if it is just a computer.
Plus at anytime your system can become bugged and who knows who'll be watching and listening to you. A very bad idea in my opinion. Use Natal to control your tv, stereo, or you game system, but thats it. Don't incorporate it into your everyday life and have it learn everything about you.
I think they're probably exaggerating some of its capabilities and it perhaps isn't going to be quite that clever but the snippets of info that keep appearing really do sound interesting.
It's hard to imagine playing a game without any buttons but I'm sure they've got it all sussed. May be some games will combine the use of joy pads e.g. an FPS where you play with the pad as normal but lean to the side to look rounds walls or peer over barriers etc.
I can see some people becoming a little concerned about Natal "learning" about you, your life, invasion of privacy... why don't you just unplug it? lol
In all honesty, he is not on about Natal directly. He is on about Natal's technology. This technology we are speaking about is not only planned for the Xbox 360 like Microsoft. Microsoft are also planning to distribute this in various other forms such as phones and televisions.
The jersey idea is great, it would also mean that it keeps the camera focused on your team, rather then seeing various opposition teams stuff.
This technology is intimidating to some as an invasion of privacy, unplug it or don't buy it. Really in a few years time, 4/6 years potentially - you will see more and more of this type of technology popping up.
PS3's Wand and Project Natal are really just the first stepping stones.
I just did a very quick & approximate count & in my room, between my TV, stereo, phone, keyboard, PC, consoles & various controllers; I have roughly 248 buttons at my immediate disposal. And guess what? I know what they all do!
If gaming needs dumbing down even further from where we are with consoles, to incorporate people that are too moronic to even press a f**king button... then as a race, we are in trouble.
Buttons usually have names and do what they day on the tin.
Motion controls tend to be a little more ambiguous.
To be honest, I'm really fed up with the lowest common denominator being the overriding factor in the market. Just because the idiots have all the kids everything has to be dumbed down for them.
Natal sounds cool and all but if this dude thinks I am going to pay MS 800 points to watch a sporting event through my Xbox just so the Natal can recognize my jersey he's quite confused.
I think the idea that a machine is observing me in my living room and learning my behaviors is a more "chilling" concept than any quantity of buttons that may be found.
It is human nature to press any button you see. What's scary about that? We all love pushing buttons. I Make them red and it gets even better. Hours of fun!
Years ago now, on a trip to see my Gran I found a key fob (shiny black) with a very large red button on it. Now I'm a curious person (but not in a sexual way) and as someone said, buttons are made for pressing. So I pressed it, just to see what it did. It was her panic alarm...... which went mental and phoned a call centre with an automated distress message, which in turn meant they called her. Everything was resolved but it goes to show that buttons aren't scary at all, but sometimes we press them when we shouldn't....... even if its just to find out what they do!
Will it learn when I'm just about ready to jerk-off and automatically pull up my favorite porn site??
Though if your penis is too small for Natal to realize you've flopped it out
Hey it's a medical condition bro
Atm butoons are the only way to communicate responsive/reliable actions for games etc. The way MS is hyping this up is like they have made the most advanced piece of tech in a decade (and they dont even make it actually).
Hmmm, I think it's more likely that Natal will "learn" about you in order to bombard you with adverts trying to sell you crap you don't want. And what's wrong with buttons? If you can't get past buttons don't play games. All this talk of bariers, you'd think it was an equality issue, a f**king human right. My wife still has to look at the pad to know which one she's pressing for f**k's sake, annoys the hell out of me. "Oooh, I don't want to learn how to drive, all those pedals and wheels are a barrier to me". FFS. Natal's a gimmick to draw the casual crowd to make more money, it's got nothing to do with a better gaming experience. This kind of s**t riles me almost as much as religion. PAH!
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