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E3: Hawk: Natal "not accurate enough" News
Xbox 360 News by Robert Purchese
Tony Hawk doesn't think too much of the new Xbox 360 motion-sensing camera and will happily stick to his plastic skateboard thank you very much.
"We actually tried to get [Tony Hawk: Ride] running with a camera, but it wasn't accurate enough," Hawk told MTV Multiplayer. "Plus you can't really do ollies, grabs and flips when you're just standing on nothing."
Hawk's board peripheral has in-built accelerometers as well as sensors that judge hand and foot movement off of the deck. Players aren't required to match moves exactly, but tricks like manuals (wheelies) and 180 spins can be fully recreated in living rooms.
The Xbox 360 motion-sensing camera was unveiled during Microsoft's E3 conference and demonstrated by overseer-with-the-glasses Kudo Tsunoda. But our friend Peter Molyneux from Lionhead stole the show unveiling Milo & Kate, his top secret camera-game that has unnervingly impressive interaction with a little boy using the new Project Natal Xbox 360 tech.
Head over to our playtest impressions of Project Natal and the Xbox 360 motion-sensing camera to find out more.
That's not out until next year, whereas Tony Hawk: Ride with peripheral will be out this autumn. We've written our feet-on impressions of Ride, too, because we're work-obsessed.
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stevethemeat
03/06/09 @ 09:33
+1
That proves it Natal is shit, you know it when a well respected developer like Tony Hawk says so
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EarlBassett
03/06/09 @ 09:35
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Thanks Tony Hawk.
You're not even good at skateboarding anymore so I should believe you about games? |
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kangarootoo
03/06/09 @ 09:35
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So the skateboard part of the PR movie was mocked up?
Well bless my cotton socks, who would have thought it. |
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kangarootoo
03/06/09 @ 09:36
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"You're not even good at skateboarding anymore so I should believe you about games?"
Nice ad hominem, well done. |
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Wastelander
03/06/09 @ 09:42
+1
It sounds like they originally tried a camera peripheral, not specifically NATAL, which from what I've heard only first and second-party devs have known about for only a couple of months.
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AphoticCosmos
03/06/09 @ 09:42
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Poor guy got upstaged in a single fell stroke. Can't exactly blame him.
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Triggerhappytel
03/06/09 @ 09:42
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Shock Hawk endorsing his own product over competitor's!!
Or, what Dizzy said. |
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stevethemeat
03/06/09 @ 09:46
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Comming later, sony says their purple headed wand ejaculates all over natal.
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He's not likely to say "Yeah, the peripheral I'm selling is cool but the other thing I'm not selling works just as well", is he?
Also: "Plus you can't really do ollies, grabs and flips when you're just standing on nothing." So why don't you just stand on a skateboard when using Natal then? It'd be even cheaper than buying a motion sensing pseudoskateboard. |
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"Well, seeing as MS made his board obsolete in the same presentation I can understand him saying that."
Why would he care about what controls will be used in the game that wears his name, other than the quality of those controls?! If the camera was tested and approved, the game would be cheaper (smaller cost, better profit margin) and arguably be able to reach a larger audience due to the lower cost. Unless he owns the plant that makes the plastic things, he would probably earn more when the camera would be used (assuming that some kind of variable compensation is included in the endorsement contract). |
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If the camera was tested and approved, the game would be cheaper (smaller cost, better profit margin) and arguably be able to reach a larger audience due to the lower cost.
wrong. the camera would probably not be sold by ubisoft, so there'd be no win in there for ubi. but with a plastic peripheral that costs next to nothing to manufacture and that they can sell on for at least 20-30 quid, their profit margin increases quite drastically |
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Mentalist(air)
03/06/09 @ 10:01
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He has a point with it not being accurate enough
No he doesn't, all he knows is 'a camera' isn't accurate enough, according to the people making the plastic skateboard game who tested it. It might be accurate enough. We, and Tony Hawk don't know either way, yet. It seems to me that you could potentially make a far better skateboard game with full-body mo-cap, than you could with a stand-on plastic tilt sensor. |
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kangarootoo
03/06/09 @ 10:04
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I would imagine Tony hawks doesn't give a rats ass about the fanboy issues that everyone here seems concerned with. If they tried a system similar to Natal, and it didn't work so well, why would they stick with it?
"So why don't you just stand on a skateboard when using Natal then?" Really? I can think of one answer to that question. Clue: it involves not owning a skateboard. |
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Wastelander
03/06/09 @ 10:06
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The chances Robomodo or even Activision have even seen the Natal system before the conference are practically zero.
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"wrong. the camera would probably not be sold by ubisoft, so there'd be no win in there for ubi. but with a plastic peripheral that costs next to nothing to manufacture and that they can sell on for at least 20-30 quid, their profit margin increases quite drastically"
As far as I'm aware, the plastic things don't really contribute much to the profitability of the peripheral games and are generally manufactured as cheaply as possible to keep the profit margin within an acceptable range. Which is also the reason why the 'genre' plays host to so many expansions that basically recycle the game with some cheap new content but without the need for a new peripheral. |
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"Really? I can think of one answer to that question. Clue: it involves not owning a skateboard."
I can think of another: Things with wheels that you can stand on generally don't work that well within the living room. "It seems to me that you could potentially make a far better skateboard game with full-body mo-cap, than you could with a stand-on plastic tilt sensor." True, but Natan isn't full body mo-cap: it analyses an image rather than track objects through a 3D space. |
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Really? I can think of one answer to that question. Clue: it involves not owning a skateboard.
You don't own Tony Hawks magic peripheral either, so that's obviously not the problem. And a normal skateboard (or even just the board part, sans wheels) would be cheaper than the Tonyboard. I can think of another: Things with wheels that you can stand on generally don't work that well within the living room. Hey, I just had this amazing revelation. Turns out you can just take the wheels off, because there's no actual rolling involved when playing this game. Christ.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 03/06/09 @ 11:15
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Hawk's statement reads like a rehearsed endorsement for a new peripheral. After all he's hardly going to sing the praises of Natal for his new game if it works as well or better than the peripheral when said peripheral is a good way for the publishers to milk more money out of people buying the game.
Not that I care, the Tony Hawk's games went all craptacular post-Underground and I stopped buying them years ago. I can't see that this new game will reverse the declining trend myself, I suspect the inclusion of the skateboard peripheral is designed to make people think the game will be more fun and better than it actually is as well as to attract the kind of people who bought Guitar Heroes and Wii Fit, etc. We'll see... I'm not holding my breath though... |
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"Hey, I just had this amazing revelation. Turns out you can just take the wheels off, because there's no actual rolling involved when playing this game."
Yeah, that would really go down well with the non-skateboarding public... And for some reason I expect such a set-up to result in quite some broken fingers... |
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Mentalist(air)
03/06/09 @ 10:28
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True, but Natal isn't full body mo-cap
You missed the full-body mo-cap demo then? And Ellie's report on it? |
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Wastelander
03/06/09 @ 10:32
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"it analyses an image rather than track objects through a 3D space."
It can track objects through 3D space. Check out the zcam demos. |
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"You missed the full-body mo-cap demo then? And Ellie's report on it?"
No. There's a reason full body mo-cap uses multiple camera's, tracking the little dots from all angles. Natan only has a single camera and can't cope for example with body parts or objects that are obscured by other body parts/objects. |
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kangarootoo
03/06/09 @ 10:39
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@Domovoi
So instead of having a peripheral dedicated to the game in question, people should go out and buy a real skateboard AND THEN take the wheels off with a spanner? Of course, how silly of us to think that would be a ridiculous thing to suggest to the average punter. I guess the only question remaining is are they going to put these awesome suggestions on the back of the box or in the paper manual? |
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jaywalker3010
03/06/09 @ 10:48
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Erm doesnt the natal have 2 cams on the front to give a human eye perception?
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 03/06/09 @ 11:48
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Wastelander
03/06/09 @ 10:50
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Why would you even need a skateboard at all, isn't that the point?
You jump, it jumps. you spin 360, the man on the screen 360s, you jump and flick your foot as you would IRL and the man on screen does a kickflip. |
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@Les
Well, MS themselves put him on stage and right after that they show a a better (in their opinion off course) control method for motion. i didn't think the board was that hot to begin with but after seeing that natal boy "riding" a skateboard it didn't make sense at all. But seeing as this forum is full of fanboys i will probably get flamed for even insinuating anything here (not directed at you Les, just in general). I just think it was kinda pointless to have a heap of gadget motion stuff in the beginning and then upstage them by showing something that will make them useless in the future. Oh, and I still don't like waggle, with or without a stick. |
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"Natan only has a single camera and can't cope for example with body parts or objects that are obscured by other body parts/objects. "
Is has 2 different types of cameras.. but yeah.. ofc it can't track stuff behind you. Then again.. software can make assumptions about what you are doing behind your back, just like a human brain ;) Anyway.... it is indeed not a classic motion tracker.... it basically builds a 3D map of everything it "sees" and then releases powerful algorithms on it to try to make sense of it all. BTW the devices has a build in chip to do that (probably a DSP)
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 03/06/09 @ 12:01
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Mentalist(air)
03/06/09 @ 10:56
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There's a reason full body mo-cap uses multiple camera's, tracking the little dots from all angles
Actually a number of cinematic motion capture and motion control systems use only a single camera these days. I was quite surprised, actually, but that's what they featured on the making of programme for the new Red Dwarf stuff on Dave. |
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Mentalist(air)
03/06/09 @ 10:58
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To be fair to the Tony Hawk game people, you'll actually able to play their game this year.
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Erm doesnt the natal have 2 cams on the front to give a human eye perception?
No. The second camera only captures infrared information for mapping depth. I don't think we'll be seeing Stereopsis in consoles for some time, since it's a bit too computationally intensive to do in real time and do anything practical with the data. |
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Eighthours
03/06/09 @ 11:05
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They tried to use "a camera".
Not Natal. And that's the important bit. |
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Wastelander
03/06/09 @ 11:20
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It's got a camera and a infra-red depth sensor (the clever bit), so yeah, like sonar.
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Well Tony Hawk is (or was?) a pro skateboarder so obviously he's going to prefer a physical board to play a game on. However, if I was playing this game I'd rather you use the floor because jumping around on a peripheral board increases the risk of it flipping into the TV or something. At least that wouldn't happen with Natal. I hope EA make a version of Skate, which is a far better game anyway, that uses Natal to prove how utterly wrong Tony Hawk is! :D
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