July 15, 2009
Project Natal
For those of you who never heard of it, Project Natal is a new Microsoft project for the XBox360… Ok, let’s see this from a real-world perspective. I build games and play games. I have a XBox 360 and a Wii. The concept of Wii is just brilliant, I loved every cent I paid for each and every one of the games I bought. The very same can be said for XBox 360, except for the concept which is pretty much common nowadays…
Ok, so what is Project Natal? Microsoft’s attempt to control a console without controllers… Ok, right… So, what can I do? If I move my arms, then the character moves the arms in the screen. One of the videos from this year E3 shows someone playing a dodge ball-like game in a XBox360 without controllers. Hmm, nice, but I would prefer to actually PLAY the game with some friends in a real-world field rather then making a fool out of myself in front of a TV. But you can say: “Yeah right, but you could say the same about Wii”. Yes I could, but Wii was created as a party-game console from the beginning. XBox 360 was created for Halo 3 and Gears of War, and you can’t really make a party out of those…
Moving on… What if I don’t have an arm? What will the console do? Throw a NullReferenceException? What if I’m on a wheel chair? Or if I am a midget? Or if I’m tired and just want to sit down? Yes, I sometimes play Wii while I’m confortably sitting on the couch…
For more technical stuff… How the hell do you play a FPS with this system? The answer is simple, you probably don’t… Once again, you could say: “But wait… This is meant for party games”. Yes, I think that Microsoft has already planned the “DodgeBall Instincts Trilogy”, “Overdrive that cube!” and the “Kill the old blocky man – Collector’s Edition: Director’s cut”. Trying to transform a console which was prepared for bleeding-edge graphics into a party-game console seems to be a complete failure to me… You should have thought of that before, Microsoft… 😛
Here is the project Natal video from E3:
Tiago Fernandes 