nzherald.co.nz technology editor Matt Greenop reports from the biggest event in the gaming calendar - the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, California.
Microsoft might have cracked the Holy Grail of game control - by having
none at all.
Today it unveiled a new technology that allows gamers to use their own
bodies to control on screen action, under the name Project Natal.
A small device containing cameras and a microphone not only can recognise vocal commands, but can 'see' players' movements in 3D, tracking gestures and converting them to in-game movements.
A demonstration video showed a player using a fighting game without a controller and another gamer using only her hands to turn an invisible
steering wheel in a race game. Early days yet, sure, and could be quite
some time before the technology could mimic the deft touches possible
with a controller, but promising progress nonetheless.
The massive media contingent introduced to Project Natal today was
stunned by what could be a game changer for the industry. Head and
shoulders above Sony's aging EyeToy technology and solidly beating out
Wii's motion-sensitive controllers, Natal is still solidly in the
development stage, but is already in the hands of serious Xbox partners.
One megastar to come out singing its praises today was director Steven Spielberg, who was introduced to the ground-breaking technology just two months ago.
"The gamer in me went out of of my mind," he said. "It's not about reinventing the wheel, it's having no wheel at all."
Creative director for the project, former general manager of Electronic
Arts' Chicago studio, Kudo Tsunodo, came on stage and the Natal-toting
console recognised him and loaded his avatar instantly. He manipulated
pages in the Dashboard and danced around a bit, aped (albeit a bit
shakily) by his avatar.
An assistant came on stage and played a block n' ball game, Ricochet, quite effectively without even touching a controller. Even a paint program was used with only vocal prompts to change colours on the palette and to save the resulting image (no Van Gogh, just for the record).
Fable 2 creator Peter Molyneux was next up, introducing the crowd to Milo - a digital character that responded to voice commands to such a degree that his behaviour changed as he detected different tones of voice.
The Lionhead studio employee used in the live demonstration even drew a
picture on a piece of paper and 'passed' it to Milo. The gadget had
scanned it and the paper appeared in his hands. This final stage of the
demonstration came across as hugely contrived and heavily scripted, but
closer-quarter demonstrations will take place throughout the show, so it
will quickly become clear just how close Microsoft's Holy Grail actually
is to game-time reality.
* Matt Greenop is a guest of Sony PlayStation at E3 Expo.
