MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#2Here is a slightly better link:
http://gizmodo.com/5273957/microsoft-e3-keynote-archive?skyl...
I'm really looking forward to CoD Modern Warfare 2 - the trailer looks ridiculous. I've wanted a new video card for a while, but I'm not going to let myself buy one (or an accompanying 24" monitor) until I get my product launched. Looks like my deadline is November.
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#3At first I was really skeptical that the motion stuff was more Hollywood demo than reality. Then I took a closer look at the sensor bar:
http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/e3xbox/e3xbox300.jpg
I don't think that yellow thing to the left is a camera, but if both those other holes are cameras, then that would mean the XBox could indeed be getting full 3D information on you, and that really does open up some interesting possibilities. I doubt the demos are possible with silhouettes, but with full 3D information... maybe.
I remain skeptical until I try it, but I have to admit I'm intrigued. This really could be a big deal. It's cool not because current games will translate to this; they're all specialized for current controllers. It's cool because this will enable new things, some of which are things that the Wii seemed to hint at but doesn't seem to have been able to execute on.
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#4At first I was really skeptical that the motion stuff was more Hollywood demo than reality. Then I took a closer look at the sensor bar: http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/e3xbox/e3xbox300.jpg I don't think that yellow thing to the left is a camera, but if both those other holes are cameras, then that would mean the XBox could indeed be getting full 3D information on you, and that really does open up some interesting po…
I assume that the tech inside the camera is same as the 3DV ZCam, who MS purchased a few months ago. One camera captures RGB images, the other captures depth information from infrared pulses. The depth cam isn't very high res (I think 320x240 @ 30fps), but it doesn't really need to be for gesture recognition.
I've worked with the ZCam and its kind of finicky - its very sensitive to how the depth sensor is calibrated. Also, the depth sensing doesn't work well with reflective surfaces that I've seen. I'm curious if/how they've gotten around those issues.
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#5Here is a video of the Natal. Wow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03thQvGRVvQ&feature=playe...
I just hope it works as advertised and I hope it has an easy to use API/SDK.
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#6I hope Natal works out as well in real life as it does in the ads. I really like some of the motion-sensitive Wii games... but Wii games have terrible graphics, and I find that distracting. Having games that are both motion sensitive AND full HD will be wonderful. (I wonder if there will be a Mirror's Edge 2 that takes advantage of this.)
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#7At first I was really skeptical that the motion stuff was more Hollywood demo than reality. Then I took a closer look at the sensor bar: http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/e3xbox/e3xbox300.jpg I don't think that yellow thing to the left is a camera, but if both those other holes are cameras, then that would mean the XBox could indeed be getting full 3D information on you, and that really does open up some interesting po…
There are indeed two cameras and a microphone array. The hardware design is still not final, but it is able to extract accurate depth information. Similarly, the software is not final, but the skeletal tracking demos which I have seen have been pretty impressive.
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#8The voice recognition stuff also looked impressive.
Buzz (Quiz game) with voice recognition is a killer feature. (My mother in law would probably buy one for that)
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#9Can't wait to put my hands on it and start hacking some crazy software. Of course someone will have to write some drivers for it...
Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox
#10Here is a video of the Natal. Wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03thQvGRVvQ&feature=playe... I just hope it works as advertised and I hope it has an easy to use API/SDK.
Yikes. I wonder how Nintendo can respond to this. Microsoft is really going for their throat here.