MS: Natal will work with "all ethnicities"

By Robert Purchese Published 10 June, 2009

Tech demos can be "temperamental".

Microsoft has responded to rather eyebrow-raising claims that Project Natal has problems tracking the movement of black skin, stating that the technology will "obviously work with people of all shapes and ethnicities at launch".

"Last week at E3, we gave a taste of what to anticipate when Project Natal launches. As we mentioned to everyone who had the chance to play, we were working with tech demos and, as we all know, these can be temperamental," Microsoft told Eurogamer.

"The goal of Project Natal is to break down the barriers for everyone to play, and it will obviously work with people of all shapes and ethnicities at launch."

The company pointed us towards a YouTube video of Sugar Ray Leonard - the retired African-American boxer - playing with Project Natal at E3 last week, and experiencing evidently no problems.

African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal was reported to have had problems steering Burnout Paradise using Project Natal during a demonstration at E3. Early reaction on NeoGAF claimed that the melanin in black skin interferes with near-infrared spectroscopy, which Project Natal apparently uses.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (80) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • migasUK #1 3 years ago

    first

  • Dizzy #2 3 years ago

    Those "claims" were a joke on NeoGAF.

  • Wastelander #3 3 years ago

    Jesus fuck, do EG just take their info straight from GAF nowadays?

    Near-infrared spectroscopy

    What that has to do with Natal I really don't know.

  • Domovoi #4 3 years ago

    Did N'Gai subsequently write a Newsweek article stating that Natal dovetailed with classic racist treatments?

  • Xerx3s #5 3 years ago

    "African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal"

    You mean the same guy that screamed 'racism' about RE5 before he even played the game?

  • hiddenranbir #6 3 years ago

    I thought using the phrase 'African American' was silly these days.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #7 3 years ago

    "African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal"

    Oh dear, that guy who cried wolf about Resident Evil 5... what a plonker.

    I can imagine the thought process now... 'Hmmm, this control system is a bit flakey and not really responding to my commands that well - it must be racist'

    Or, its just a naff control system prototype that you don't know how to use?

  • Yossarian #8 3 years ago

    Don't kid yourselves, everyone takes their info from GAF.

    It's the most important gaming website.

  • jmg123 #9 3 years ago

    Xbox 360 and Natal advert poster review comments might go along the lines of "5* product fun to play - generic games mag", "Truely innovative control approach - generic games review website" "Finally a games system that fits with our ideals - Nick Griffin"

    Seriously though it was I doubt this will be true, and M$ would never release a product if these problems existed as it would be rightly be corperate suicide.

    On a side not, can you code up a post moderator script that auto ignores anyone who includes the words "first" in the first post would save me a click. Perhaps said script could also sign up said users email address to a load of spam as well just for good measure.

  • robrymond #10 3 years ago

    The guy who spurts utter shit in Edge. He looks for something racist in everything. He'll say his own shit is racist next.

  • Markusdragon #11 3 years ago

    This is a Better off Ted episode! Serously, a sitcom made a joke about this back in early April!


    The hell!?!

  • Freek #12 3 years ago

    It's not a bug. Milo's KKK membership is actually a subplot in the game, one of the many fun things to discover as you get to know him better.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #13 3 years ago

    N'Gai Croal didn't actually cry wolf - it was a report by bitmob that witnessed the difficulties he had at E3.

    NeoGAF brought this to our attention so we credited it. It's a great source. They're not our claims, but we thought they were better checked out than regurgitated, which is what we did.

  • des #14 3 years ago

    "It's the most important gaming website."

    Gaming website?

    More like retard full gaming forum...
    If gaf was so important then Killzone 2 would have sold 20 million,but reality is a "bit" different...lol

  • Tomo #15 3 years ago

    Spectroscopy... 0_0

    Wha?

  • daz_john_smith #16 3 years ago

    Xerx3s
    "African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal"

    You mean the same guy that screamed 'racism' about RE5 before he even played the game?

    Is he the one ot blame for the god-awful late addition of SHeva to Resi 5?

  • kissthestick #17 3 years ago

    Natal, sponsored by the BNP

  • #18 3 years ago

    Calgon...seeking Calgon lol.

  • Steroyd #19 3 years ago

    "at launch"

    Is that them admitting that right now Natal is racist? lol

  • robrymond #20 3 years ago

    Was there any other black jounalists having difficulties then?

  • the_dudefather #21 3 years ago

    Milo doesn't care about black people

  • kissthestick #22 3 years ago

    black jounalists?

    lol

  • patch #23 3 years ago

    Here's a page on how the Natal technology probably works. 3DV are the people Microsoft have got to do the tech for them by the sounds of it. If I read it correctly (which I might not be!), they send out a wave of infra red and based on how long it takes to return to a 3d camera, they can judge depth within a particular field. Found this site listing a number of experiments carried out with infra red on white and (excuse the racist term which I in no way endorse) "negro" skin (it was carried out in the 50's). The one to look for is the one by Salthouse in 1958:

    Stated that the amount of light reflected from caucasian and negroid skin was very similar and that the nipples of a caucasian appeared pale while those of a Negro appeared very dark. Concluded that the melanin pigment in negroid nipples was so abundant and near to the surface that it absorbed infrared.

    Mods: I can edit this post if you think the terms in it are too politically incorrect.

  • Xerx3s #24 3 years ago

    "Is he the one ot blame for the god-awful late addition of SHeva to Resi 5? "

    Probably. Come to think of it, she was the reason why I couldn't be bothered to finish the end battle. I guess I have him to thank for that.

  • TheComedian #25 3 years ago

    This is embarrassing for EG.

    That was clearly a joke.

  • kangarootoo #26 3 years ago

    @Xerx3s

    "You mean the same guy that screamed 'racism' about RE5 before he even played the game? "

    What in the name of Worzel Gummidge has THAT got to do with anything? Are you suggesting he pretended to have problems steering the demo?

  • penhalion #27 3 years ago

    @Patch

    I think that research seems to have been carried out by a closet homosexual. He seems to go on about nipples an awful lot, while only glossing over the fact that the light levels reflected were similar.

    In truth me and my friends have long noticed that the playstation eye and the microsoft cameras have great difficulty tracking black people. Unless you have stupid light levels and a pale background behind you, the cameras go ape shit and misread a lot of the motions.

    I can fully believe that Natal will have issues in this case. It's going to be down to microsoft to put a high enough resolution camera into Natal, to allow it to pick up black and Indian skin tones correctly.

  • Wastelander #28 3 years ago

    Now GAF is laughing at us...

    SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE EG!

    We are the mockery of the internets ;_;

  • Ryze #29 3 years ago

    ie.

    Black folks may need white living rooms?

  • Spydy #30 3 years ago

    What about morbidly obese people who's arms and legs blur the line between limbs and fatty outcroppings.

    Obesity doesn't care for skin colour. These 'types' of people are being ignored, I say.

  • Wastelander #31 3 years ago

    "What about morbidly obese people who's arms and legs blur the line between limbs and fatty outcroppings."

    GAF's intensive research can help you out there!

  • penhalion #32 3 years ago

    @Ryze

    Yea we found that the eyetoy games played fine if we stood in front of the pale wall of my living room. In that case it didn't matter if you were black or white. When we moved in front of the dark brown sofa though. It only picked up the white players movements accurately and seemed to loose some of the black players arm motions.

    The camares are just not good in low light and so a dark room with dark skinned players equals a camera that thinks no-one is there!

  • zedzee #33 3 years ago

    "Natal will work with all ethnicities."

    Oh good, for a moment there I though MS would be launching a racist product.

    COME ON!!! Have you got NOTHING BETTER to be reporting on?! Would MS be REALLY that stupid?!!!!

  • Garulon #34 3 years ago

    "I can fully believe that Natal will have issues in this case. It's going to be down to microsoft to put a high enough resolution camera into Natal, to allow it to pick up black and Indian skin tones correctly"

    It's (I think) a time-of-flight infrared camera though, so it'll work based on reflectd IR light rather than passive light reflection. That paper suggested IR reflection differences are negligable across skin tones, and only of slight interest if areas with large melanin content are being used to track body movements, which they're not. "Natal crap at tracking black people's nipples shock" isn't that good a headline though.

  • Eraysor #35 3 years ago

    EG is even more gullible than I thought, especially after falling for ACE Team's April Fool's where they said they would only make casual point and click adventures in future.

  • penhalion #36 3 years ago

    @Garulon

    It isn't an infrared camara otherwise it wouldn't be able to do face recognition. I haven't had a chance to play around with one yet (My boss claims we are getting a few of them in for dev work) but, from what the poor guy assigned to it is telling me. It is a standard camera and a couple of other sensors for distance. An infrared camera wouldn't recognise anything and would bethrown out by the lights in a room. It would be competely blinded by a halogen bulb for instance!

  • Fixxxer #37 3 years ago

    I quite like the idea of Microsoft releasing racist hardware.

    The real next gen!
    Edited by 1 at 10/06/09 @ 13:06

  • Dizzy #38 3 years ago

    "It's the most important gaming website."

    ROFL. NeoGAF is the home of zillions of emo whining teen animated gif posting "gamers". Nothing important about it.

  • Domovoi #39 3 years ago

    It isn't an infrared camara otherwise it wouldn't be able to do face recognition. I haven't had a chance to play around with one yet (My boss claims we are getting a few of them in for dev work) but, from what the poor guy assigned to it is telling me. It is a standard camera and a couple of other sensors for distance. An infrared camera wouldn't recognise anything and would bethrown out by the lights in a room. It would be competely blinded by a halogen bulb for instance!

    How about just a regular -and- an infrared camera? And a simple infrared filter in front of the lens would take care of all the other lights in the room. Your remote control works in a normal room too, right?

  • Doctor_What #40 3 years ago

    Burnout Paradise runs at 60fps for the driving sections, and Natal runs at 30fps. Even if Natal is brilliant for playing racing games, it would still be half as sensitive as a normal controller.

    It might also be worth mentioning that Burnout is pants when played with a steering wheel - it's designed for players who can flip to full-lock steering immediately, so if playing it on a real wheel is bad, imagine how bad it must be to play it on an imaginary wheel that samples at half the framerate of the game! :)

    Whether you're got black skin or not, that's going to screw up anyone's sense of control over a car!

  • Wastelander #41 3 years ago

    According to Wiki:

    "The depth sensor consists of an infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor, and allows the Project Natal sensor to see in 3D under any ambient light conditions. The active depth-sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, with the Project Natal software capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on the gameplay and environment conditions, such as the presence of couches."
    Edited by 1 at 10/06/09 @ 13:12

  • toolfan2007 #42 3 years ago

    Thats because M$ are rascists...LOL

  • rhubarbandcustard #43 3 years ago

    I have great optimism for Natal but it will NOT work with all ethnicities.

    Muslim women who wear the full face burka would presumably need to wear it for communicating with virtual men as much as they do when mixing in the real world.

    As Natal presumably needs more than eye contact to work I would like to take this opportunity to accuse Microsoft of Islamophobia.

  • spidermanalf #44 3 years ago

    MS are racist, a quick google proves it!

    http://ne ws.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,10000...

  • Wastelander #45 3 years ago

    That's true! :o

    New EG story at 5.

  • patch #46 3 years ago

    I'm guessing the IR camera will only pick up light of a specific wavelength, so interference from other light sources shouldn't be a problem. After all, if they couldn't remove interference from IR guided missiles, the Americans would have all kinds of trouble aiming at things; they'd start hitting the wrong targets... oh, never mind.

  • sinelinden #47 3 years ago

    British Natal Party ;-)

  • JensonJet #48 3 years ago

    Microsoft may not be racist, but I wonder if their aversion to expressing sexuality applies to Natal. Perhaps if a limp wristed user steps near the thing it'll shut down their Xbox?

  • Ryze #49 3 years ago

    @spidermanalf

    Oh no!

    Metadata racialistz!

  • B0MBJ4CK #50 3 years ago

    Ahhh.....
    but what about a one armed Japanese hermaphrodite with a limp

    Bet they'll need a patch for that...er....him...er...her

  • sneetch #51 3 years ago

    @Garulon
    "Natal crap at tracking black people's nipples shock" isn't that good a headline though.

    Are you kidding me? That's an awesome headline! It hints at so many possibilities for "mature" content on Natal. ;)

    @patch
    (excuse the racist term which I in no way endorse) "negro"

    Racist? Surely it's no more racist than black, white, Caucasian or Asian? You do know it's just the Spanish for "black", right?

    Oh well, I suppose with a little effort you can take offence at anything.

  • kangarootoo #52 3 years ago

    @sneetch

    "Oh well, I suppose with a little effort you can take offence at anything."

    I take offense at the way you spell offense.

    I guess you were right ;D

  • AphoticCosmos #53 3 years ago

    "melanin in black skin interferes with near-infrared spectroscopy"

    That's probably the stupidest thing I've seen on the internet to date.

    Seriously . . . /facepalm

  • mega7ech #54 3 years ago

    Wish that N'Gai Croal guy would just STFU! His "this might be racist" comments just infact breed racism - Dick! His coloumn in Edge I find most of the time to be bollocks also. Leave the race shit out of it!

  • obonicus #55 3 years ago

    Here I thought vg247 was what you guys used when sourcing GAF.

  • SEVQA #56 3 years ago

    I remember the first Xbox controller (the Duke) specifically designed for Americans and westerners with sausage fingers and needing a complete re design (S-Type) for the Asian market who typically have smaller hands.

    Shows they never really gave a crap in the first place and this is no different!

  • sneetch #57 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    @sneetch

    "Oh well, I suppose with a little effort you can take offence at anything."

    I take offense at the way you spell offense.

    I guess you were right ;D

    I apologise if my spelling has caused offence to you, I certainly never intended any offence. :p

    My company insists on using US English in our docs and I no longer know which I'm using anymore. :)

    Wait, I think offence is the UK and Irish English spelling. Now I'm really confused. To the dictionary-mobile!

  • altitude2k #58 3 years ago

    Usually it's C rather than S. We do the same, and I'm always correcting people's spelling of license (American) to licence (UK).

  • drumbaby #59 3 years ago

    "It will work if they wear white hoods"

  • turnget2005 #60 3 years ago

    the first pseye on the ps2 was terrible for recognising black skin, thats a fact cause my girlfriend is back im white and i have one. so this whole thing is quite easily true.

    not that im trying to say tat it is racist just if you have a darker back (wall colour) it was harder for the cam to recognise the contrast! i simple white sheet was an easy solution. :p
    Edited by 1 at 10/06/09 @ 17:13

  • sneetch #61 3 years ago

    @SEVQA
    I remember the first Xbox controller (the Duke) specifically designed for Americans and westerners with sausage fingers and needing a complete re design (S-Type) for the Asian market who typically have smaller hands.

    Shows they never really gave a crap in the first place and this is no different!

    I appreciate that you think that everything MS does is wrong and indeed evil but that's a bit of a logic failure on your part there isn't it?

    I would say the fact that MS actually changed their controller for the Asian market shows they gave more of a damn than Nintendo or Sony who created controllers specifically designed for the Asian market with their smaller hands and never produced one better suited to the larger handed western market. My mate Diarm, for example, hates every console controller except the chunky old Xbox one as he thinks they're too damn small and awkward.

    The biggest pity was that they stopped making the old chunky ones going for the same one-size-fits-fuck-all philosophy that Nintendo and Sony share.

  • Miths #62 3 years ago

    "This is a Better off Ted episode! Serously, a sitcom made a joke about this back in early April!"

    You beat me to it :). Entertaining new show by the way, I'm glad it's been renewed for a second season.

  • DefdumBlindkid #63 3 years ago

    Blacks are about as good at video games as swimming anyway

  • kangarootoo #64 3 years ago

    "I apologise if my spelling has caused offence to you, I certainly never intended any offence. :p "

    Quickly followed by...

    "Usually it's C rather than S. We do the same, and I'm always correcting people's spelling of license (American) to licence (UK)."

    /raises eyebrows
    /checks Oxford English Dictionary


    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

    I incorrectly corrected your proper UK english spelling, and gave a US spelling as the incorrect correct alternative.

    The irony is that I've been spelling license (licence) wrong all this time too and I blame it all on doing a techy job for an american company years ago.

    The rot has obviously set in deep and started to corrupt other words. I'm going to have to amputate...... MY HEAD

    /thunk

    Thetr, thsta bettwe. Noq whete arw my resdong glassrd.

  • Sycopat #65 3 years ago

    I haven't seen N'gai call anything racist, reading the article he was crap at a game and they suggested it was due to his flailing dreadlocks or pudgy body...

    Nor did he ever actually call resi 5 racist iirc, he just pointed out that whoever had made the trailer was unaware of the fact that it could have been construed as racist due to every black man in it being evil (As opposed to the black zombies, zombies are obviously a bad thing.) I may be recalling it incorrectly, but I'm pretty damn sure that he made some comments which were then taken out of context, about a trailer put together predominantly by people with little/no cultural experience of black/white racism and which was itself using lots of out of context shots to generate excitement.

  • kangarootoo #66 3 years ago

    +1

  • SEVQA #67 3 years ago

    @Sneetch!

    "I appreciate that you think that everything MS does is wrong and indeed evil but that's a bit of a logic failure on your part there isn't it?" NO!

    When the Xbox first came out I worked as an Xbox sales rep to make a little cash and at the sales briefing in Reading we were all instructed to not mention to prospective customers that the system was made by Microsoft as it contains negative connotations in the minds of the public! - I almost pissed myself. But then again they gave me an xbox bag, key ring, sweets, and a copy of new title that was even out yet, so fuck it I accepted Satans cock and I would tell people it was made by Nike if they wanted.

  • des #68 3 years ago

    I bet he liked having Sony glowing dildo in his ass.

  • Ryze #69 3 years ago

    @DefdumBlindkid

    Hey!

    Black people kick ARSE at video games!

    /regrets replying to him...

  • Razorus #70 3 years ago

    I lolled.

    Does it work on Arabs? It might detect traces of C4 in my skin.

  • JeffGerstmann #71 3 years ago

    I could imagine our N'gai Croal claim his inability to play be because of racist hardware

  • AphoticCosmos #72 3 years ago

    "I could imagine our N'gai Croal claim his inability to play be because of racist hardware"

    IMHO he should be happy - the black 360 is "Elite".

  • TriggerHippie #73 3 years ago

    Its no mistake that Natal doesn't recognise darker skin tones. This is a an international conspiracy perpetuated by disgruntled post modernist mimes. Expect every Natal box to include white face paint, a stupid berret and a stripy shirt.

  • hiruu #74 3 years ago

    This Croal guy is REALLY getting under my skin...black skin that is. People like him just get on my da#n nerves, and it leads to alot of Peter and the Wolf scenario...screaming race on everything dilutes real racially issues on everything. It's really sad to say, but he's as bad as the pople who do this stuff, since they create stife, where there isn't. Instead of researching NATAL to ensure it does have a problem with black skin, he makes a point, based on HIS limited experience. What nonsense!

  • YourMessageHere #75 3 years ago

    @ kangarootoo
    I'd ignore OED if I were you, Collins is closer to what is taught as "proper English" in schools (or at least in whichever few remaining schools actually do teach proper English). I don't have access to either OED or Collins at the moment but you may find that Collins disagrees with OED - I know it does in some ways, e.g. over (IIRC) -ise/-yse vs. -ize/-yze. Offence and Licence are correct in either case, but I suspect License may also be OK.

    @Sycopat
    "Nor did he ever actually call resi 5 racist iirc, he just pointed out that whoever had made the trailer was unaware of the fact that it could have been construed as racist due to every black man in it being evil (As opposed to the black zombies, zombies are obviously a bad thing.) I may be recalling it incorrectly, but I'm pretty damn sure that he made some comments which were then taken out of context, about a trailer put together predominantly by people with little/no cultural experience of black/white racism and which was itself using lots of out of context shots to generate excitement."

    In practical terms, what is the difference between "That's racist!" and "Some people might say that's racist!"? Whether or not he is/was using an academically-fabricated proxy, he was still making accusations, and not in the appropriate context. My experience of his work, which admittedly is far from vast, suggests to me he's primarily a critic/academic and his journalistic credentials and skills leave much to be desired. If he's going to write a serious academic treatise on unconscious racism in Japanese-made games, this is reasonable, but as a journalist it seems somewhat outside his remit, not to mention the fact that the media will inevitably jump on any such claim, as I am sure he is very much aware. As such, I am much more minded to say that he was having trouble with Natal because he's significantly better at analysing games than he is at playing them, rather than any technical problem, race related or otherwise.

  • 3william56 #76 3 years ago

    Tech Demo? I thought it was all complete and commercialised, and ready to go with at least one game. Or that's what EG told us, when comparing it to the PSPleasurer, and choosing Natal for teh w1n because it was closer to release. Has EG been fooled by a pretty casing?

  • Calgon #77 3 years ago

    *Hands DaemonB some cream for his ass*

    I know it hurts but try and get over it eh? It's much easier that way. ;)

  • secombe #78 3 years ago

    Even if this were true, how on earth did racism ever come into it? If for some reason a technology didn't work with a particular skin colour, that's hardly racism is it?! Only if it were specifically engineered to exclude certain people based on their skin colour would it ever become 'racism', in my opinion.

  • Calgon #79 3 years ago

    Be carefull Secombe it doesnt matter when its MS you arent allow to use reason or logic... only hate or you'll be labeled an "xbot" or "on the MS payroll".

  • Yaz #80 2 years ago

    Not sure why you're bumping this old topic Mercatoria. HP's webcam problem is a genuine issue caused by the way the software recognises a face, where it identifies facial features like the eyebrows by the tonal difference between it and the skin, therefore they can correct the problem by optimizing the software.

    N'Gai Croal's problem with Natal has nothing to do with his skin colour (as proven by the many black celebrities who tried out Natal at E3), hence that report was just internet mischief, where people put 2 and 2 together to make 5.

    Hence Croal's problem was certainly due to something else, for example, some people had problems steering because they crossed their arms over when driving, and at that time, the Natal prototype got confused whenever people did that. The same with feet, hence the Avatar problem during the conference..."You ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar's shoe looks like? Well BAM! There it is" :)