If you’ve been following E3… at least for today… well, you’ve without a doubt learned about Natal(if you don’t, click this link), Microsoft’s new technology that might change the way games are played, or the home entertainment industry in general.

It features a bunch of motion sensors, a camera and microphone. It captures your movements to instantly translate them in-game, using both the camera and motion detectors. It also features a bunch of fun little features like voice and face recognition and a bunch of other random stuff. And all of that without having to use a controller. At all.

Basically, it has a ton of features and things it can do. So, I was basically wondering how it will really influence the gaming world.

So, read on to see what I think about this.

Wii (AKA why I’m skeptical about all this)
I don’t think I can talk about Project Natal without talking about the Wii.
So, after the Wii’s success, I can definitely see why Microsoft are making this. They want a bit of the incredibly large market that Nintendo have been getting in recent years. Heck, they said it themselves at the conference(just using other words). Make something that makes gaming super accessible, and VOILA, instant-success. Sure, they are ALSO trying to make gaming evolve, but the audience that comes with the Wii could eat up this new thing, and that’s what a business actually cares about.

So why am I skeptical? Well, mostly because of how much Nintendo promised about the Wii, and how it didn’t deliver. Full 1:1 motion control (which we have to BUY AN ACCESSORY to make it closer to what they promised at first) was the big promise and it never actually happened. It did have SOME motion detection, which kinda worked, but in the end the only way motion control was used was “waving the controller=button press”. Yeah, instead of detecting the motion and replicating it, it just does a pre-programmed motion that could work just as well with a button press, or analog stick spinning.

So while I see big potential in Natal, I can’t help but be skeptical about it, because it shows even more promise than the Wii and the chances that it will not deliver are a lot higher because of that.

What will Natal do for the gaming world?
Now that’s a tough question. If it’s all it’s being hyped up as, this will be a huge advancement in both gaming and entertainment technologies. We’ve seen some examples in the reveal video. A fighting game where you actually have to avoid enemy attacks and find the right time to counter(super-advanced Punch-Out?), racing games, lame mini-games. Depending on WHAT gaming companies will do with the technology, this could be huge.

For the average gamer who has been playing games for 15+ years, this will NOT replace the controller. Not for a long time. It will, however, introduce simpler ways to play games, making it a lot less difficult to learn (yeah, apparently people have problem because controllers have so many buttons). All you have to do is move. If it doesn’t overcomplicate things by forcing you to mimic walking motions in an FPS or something, it can easily have just about any type of game you might be interested in, but with deeper, more interesting gameplay mechanics, since the characters could replicate your movements almost exactly. It might not be ideal, with some obvious limitations, but this will definitely bring gaming technology a huge step forward.

Of course, while this can and most likely will cater to the hardcore gamer by bringing completely new types of games, or new twists to old types. But it will also attract a lot of casual games that have been “plaguing” the Wii library.  A lot of them. And people will definitely buy into this. Much of this has to do with the NXE and Xbox Live. Menu navigation can be controlled fully with just your hands, and you can use it as a webcam and microphone for webcam chat and other related applications. You can just sit back, choose a movie and control whatever you need just by waving your arms around, or go online and talk with friends, with little to no effort. It’s incredibly convenient, and simple to use. The menus are already simple, so why not? The appeal to non-gamers and casual gamers is astounding.

So in the end, what will it do? Well, there’s way too many variables to determine what can and will happen, but it all depends on what the developers do with it.  Huge potential means nothing if no one does anything with it. I think it will prove to be a big advance in the gaming industry, and if used properly it could be the best thing in gaming since the NES controller.

Should you care about it?
Well… Yes, you should. It’s a big advancement in gaming technology, that’s for sure. Even if you don’t buy it, you should give it a try whenever it comes out, hope a friend gets it or something, or rent it if possible, and keep up with it to see what’s coming out for it and see what developers will do with it. As long as developers realize the potential of this technology, I predict we’ll see big things coming from this.
We already saw Milo, made by Lionhead studios, which displays a completely new way of interacting with a character. You have this little boy, with apparently advanced AI, that you can actually have a conversation with and various kinds of interaction, including drawing things and getting them scanned into the game almost instantly to give it to him.New ways to interact with characters, new ways to interact with environments, which is exactly what developers should be doing right now. (Heck, I believe that this will be a big BOOM in the Eroge market in japan, enabling you to “touch” little anime girls and have conversations with them…hopefully i’m not giving them ideas right now >_<)

Is it going to be worth it? Well, we don’t have a price point yet, so it’s hard to say (current rumors point at a 200$ price, which is a bit much). Since this is a bit of an experiment, it might not be worth it at the start. The developers need to get used to the ins and outs of the new technology and everything it can do. When they get used to it, the possibilities are endless.

Overall, I believe, or at least HOPE, that Natal will be something to make gaming more accessible and will get people to play different types of games, but also will be a fun new way to play games that even the “hardcore” gamer could find interesting.

Innovation isn’t innovation if it’s not being used properly. And mostly making cheap mini-game compilations is not what I’d call “being used properly”. The Wii might’ve been a slight let-down on the “innovation” side of things, but one can hope that Natal will be different.

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