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MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

gizmodo.com

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Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#31

Post by Jem »

liamkf wrote: post #28
Jem wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Rayman: Raving Rabbids games, one of the minigames involves tracing an outline on the screen with as much accuracy as possible. I don't know whether or not you'd consider that "complex", but it certainly involves a little more than jerks and twists. (Just the first thing that came to mind :) )

The pointer and the accelerometers are two separate things. I haven't heard many complaints about the pointer accuracy (which is what Rayman uses for the section you're thinking of).

I don't know the technical specifics, so I'll take your word for it ;)

Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#33

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

axod wrote: post #29
LogicHoleFlaw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a web browser is indeed a glaring hole in the system capabilities, but the optical drive noise is a bit of a red herring these days with the ability to install games to disk. It runs silently when you do that.

That's actually another gripe of mine. What the hell is the point of giving me a HDD to copy games to, if I still have to insert the disc to play it. Complete and utter failure. Also on mine at any rate, the noise from the fans it most of the issue.

Maybe I just have a newer model? The fans run silent for me. If they were noisy that would be aggravating, I agree.

Also, needing to have the disc in place to play HDD games is ridiculous. No question about it.

Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#34

Post by snprbob86 »

snprbob86 wrote: post #7
jerf wrote: post #3

At 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.

In the interest of correctness, I should say they aren't both normal cameras. In the interest of keeping my job, I won't say more. Needless to say: our APIs will provide at least depth, color, and skeletons. Cool stuff :-)

Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#35

Post by potatolicious »

Jem wrote: post #31
liamkf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pointer and the accelerometers are two separate things. I haven't heard many complaints about the pointer accuracy (which is what Rayman uses for the section you're thinking of).

I don't know the technical specifics, so I'll take your word for it ;)

The Wii sensor bar combined with the little camera inside your Wiimote can give you a reasonably accurate estimate of where your wiimote is pointed on the screen.

This is quite bad at gestures though, particularly when the front of the Wiimote is pointed away from the sensor bar (as it is in games like boxing and tennis). In these cases, lacking a visual way to tell movement, the controller relies entirely on the accelerometer, which while theoretically capable, saturate very quickly with full body motion.

This is why in Raving Rabbids, where you have to play rabbid-DDR with the music, you have to jerk the controller - the accelerometer is neither reliable nor accurate enough to reliably infer your intentions through light motions.

Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#36

Post by Jem »

potatolicious wrote: post #35
Jem wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the technical specifics, so I'll take your word for it ;)

The Wii sensor bar combined with the little camera inside your Wiimote can give you a reasonably accurate estimate of where your wiimote is pointed on the screen. This is quite bad at gestures though, particularly when the front of the Wiimote is pointed away from the sensor bar (as it is in games like boxing and tennis). In these cases, lacking a visual way to tell movement, the controller relies entirely on the acc…

Thanks for clarifying (I never can do those music minigames!)

Re: MS just announced some pretty awesome stuff for the Xbox

#37

Post by whacked_new »

chris11 wrote: post #20
chaosmachine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes. I wonder how Nintendo can respond to this. Microsoft is really going for their throat here.

I don't know how much of a threat this is. I personally don't like the wiimote a lot, so there is definitely room for improvement. But the wiimote comes with every wii, and can be used on every game. So the problem Microsoft has is that there will not be a large library to take advantage of the Natal. It seems like it'll be another eyetoy. The Natal will probably sell a decent amount, but its use will languish from a…

I can see one significant difference here: the Natal has what seems like a very intelligent camera system, and that can be a standalone product, whereas the Wii system by itself is useless.

A media center that allows one-click videoconferencing with your TV, bundled with a Minority Report style photo album viewer, DVD player, AND has the ability to play games.

If the price isn't anything outrageous I can see fast adoption. Oh, and they have Square Enix lined up. I'd bet it's a worthy contender.

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