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Input Devices Microsoft XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Microsoft Working On Motion-Sensing Camera For the Xbox 360 68

Posted by Soulskill from the and-they-promise-not-to-watch-you-and-laugh dept.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the motion-capture technology Microsoft is rumored to be working on for the Xbox 360. "Unlike the Wii, the Microsoft camera won't require users to hold any hardware to control on-screen action, the people familiar with the matter said. The camera would sit near the television and capture when players move their hands, legs or head." The Guardian Games Blog points out that we've gotten a look at this technology before, from a company called 3DV, which was reported to be talking with Microsoft earlier this year. Many expect the specifics of this technology to be revealed at E3 early next month.
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Microsoft Working On Motion-Sensing Camera For the Xbox 360 More

Microsoft Working On Motion-Sensing Camera For the Xbox 360

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  • Hmm (Score:3, Informative)

    by u38cg ( 607297 ) <calum@callingthetune.co.uk> on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @08:37AM (#27935955) Homepage
    This sounds familiar. [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      I never realised the eyetoy was a 3D camera.

    • Exactly what I was thinking.

      A "more recent" example is the PS3's "Eye".

      Its very poorly supported, and provides nowhere near the same level of control as a Wii-mote (let alone 4 of them + nunchucks).

      On the other hand, it provides Video-Chat (something Nintendo will probably never offer), and when combined with some of their "Interactive art" ideas, the PS Eye kept a bunch of kids very occupied during my last party. Amazed the heck out of my wife. :)

    • If it sounds familiar, it's because MS is still fishing for ways to market 'Surface', that big-ass table that many people mistakenly believe uses touch-tech, when it actually uses motion-detecting cameras under the glass/inside the BA table.

  • Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rackserverdeals ( 1503561 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @08:40AM (#27935975) Homepage Journal

    They're going to have to wear a black leotard with whit ping pong balls on it as they jump around....

    and in many cases, people don't want to see that.

    • >and in many cases, people don't want to see that.
      Speak for yourself!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PIBM ( 588930 )

      The biggest problem I can see is that the only light source will be the viewing medium in many cases, which will most probably be causing the camera to struggle. The second one is the color of the people playing, vs the background color, if there's even enough light (and that it's not too modulated by the lighting coming from the tv..)

      I'll believe it once I test it ;)

      • could be IR? Even cheap digital cameras can work well as IR cameras. Just remove the IR filter. Maybe replace it with a filter that only allows IR light.

        Then you can also use a controller with it that has IR LEDs in it as well.

        Maybe it's a conspiracy by the paint industry. They have too much leftover green pigment?

      • The 3DV camera uses IR, it emits 2 short duration IR pulses. The first is used to measured the reflectance of the surfaces at each pixel, the second is gated by an extremely fast shutter in front of the camera.

        By comparing the two values the distance to objects can be computed for each pixel.

  • Will the camera also record so people can post videos of themselves failing around online?

  • One already looks quite idio^H^H^H^H funny when playing wii with just one (or two) remote(s)... Imagine if you have to wiggle your whole body to play a game. Hi hi!...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      One already looks quite idio^H^H^H^H funny when playing wii with just one (or two) remote(s)... Imagine if you have to wiggle your whole body to play a game.

      Before there was the Nintendo Revolution (sold as "Wii"), there was the Konami Dance Dance Revolution. That requires moving the whole lower body. And even before that, there was Nintendo Dance Aerobics.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Divebus ( 860563 )

      Hi hi!...

      The YL already thinks you're a juvenile - wait 'til she watches you QSY around the living room like an idiot.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This is actually a fairly cool bit of technology. My girlfriend recently got a crazy expensive webcam for herself. I don't know the model # off the top of my head but it is the one of their upper level models that has the Carl Zeiss Optical technology in it. Bundled with the camera comes face recognition and motion sensing software. It locks in on her face and when she moves around it follows her face so that she is never out of frame. It is actually quite accurate and rarely loses track of her.

    Not sure how

    • Dude, it's not her face you want it locked on...
      • Touche, and it normally isn't ;) But for the context of this article that seemed kinda moot. Webcams have been trained in on other body parts for ages now. Perhaps they need some sort of other kind of "recognition" options as well?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by caffeinemessiah ( 918089 )

      It locks in on her face and when she moves around it follows her face so that she is never out of frame. It is actually quite accurate and rarely loses track of her.

      From a video processing point of view, this is not too hard when pretty much the full frame is filled with one prominent face, which is looking head on at the camera and usually not too far from it. Playing video games is a whole different cup of tea, and some of the reasons why this might not work so well are:

      1. You're usually very far from the screen, so the face/body is less evident in the scene, although this isn't a huge problem.
      2. There are usually people sitting next to you on the couch, so the algorith

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      Even fairly cheap Logitech ones have been able to do this for a few years, but not only that they can overlay your face with rendered characters also so that you can have, say, an aliens head whos eyelids blink when yours do and whose head tilts and turns with your and whose mouth and expressions are mapped to yours. Effectively it recognises key points on your face that define expressions and maps them to a 3D rendered facial model - everything from aliens to dinosaurs to sharks. It can also apply overlays

  • This will undoubtedly join the pantheon of stupid gaming ideas, alongside the Virtuaboy and PowerGlove [youtube.com]

  • I think the reason this will work when the eyetoy didn't will boil down to subtle differences and the fact that it's on an XBox and not a PS2. The XBox has a pretty good following and if M$ can manage to properly market the device (as Nintendo did the Wii) I think they'll have enough success to keep the top slot a while longer. However, what they're working on has been in the lab for at least a decade now see BLUI [arsc.edu] for example... and that has nothing to do with Microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )

      Wait, you point at the 360's following as the reason it'll do better than the EyeToy? You realize the PS2 had about 5x as many users as the 360?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Zarf ( 5735 )

        Dude, nobody's developing for the EyeToy right now. If this works it will be because of Microsoft marketing mojo and a few dozen game developer death marches. I actually would rather think that M$ is going to choke and die on this idea but I can't see it happening. They have an amazing amount of loyalty in their user base right now. It's actually almost Apple like.

  • I've never used Eyetoy or other webcam-based games, but somehow I don't think it could afford the same degree of responsiveness of the Wiimote. You can play rhythm-based games on Wii but I doubt this would be possible with a webcam. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does limit its possible uses.

    • I've never used Eyetoy or other webcam-based games, but somehow I don't think it could afford the same degree of responsiveness of the Wiimote.

      Actually, the EyeToy is pretty good. The minigames [wikipedia.org] it came with work quite well. And as to rhythm-based games, many of the DDR games can optionally add hand-movements to the dance, and that's a challenge (at least for me :-> ) but not because it's not sensitive enough. The game Antigrav [wikipedia.org] is right on the edge of what the EyeToy can do, but if you have good lighting

  • Warning! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You are wanking to unlicensed porn!

    [buy license and continue playing porn] [abort wanking]

  • Too bad it's bound to fail in the market (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turken ( 139591 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @09:15AM (#27936471)

    Two major problems with this possible system: First, it's just a camera. Without a full set of buttons on a controller that can be operated one-handed (or two hands with independent motion), you're stuck with waggle-only games and the Wii has already shown us how bad (or just plain frustrating) those can be.

    Second, at this point in the console life cycle it's just another add-on with potential for a niche market at best. Unless there is massive developer support and or a large pack-in campaign, there simply won't be enough people with the hardware to justify developing many games for is.

    So basically we're looking at another eye-toy, albeit one that can work in most rooms. Maybe Microsoft can come out and really surprise us with something amazing to add to what's already been tried before, but I'm not keeping my hopes too high for this one.

    • Worse than that, I don't see how it can be reliable. Visual systems will have to go a much further way before they're going to be reliable enough to serve in this capacity. If this is their answer to the Wiimote I think they're in for a surprise next console generation. And furthermore, some people like to play in the dark, and some will be in bright environs, or even with super-bright windows behind players.

  • Someone bought me the Xbox camera [wikipedia.org] already. Now I'm expected to buy anther camera so I can waggle my arms about like a moron to make something happen on screen?

    I think perhaps Microsoft are forgetting two key points here. The 360 has a particular set of users that are unlikely to be that enthused about a motion capture camera. They can already go out and buy a Wii if they prefer to make their input without using a normal controller. Couple this with the fact that motion capture through a single fixed came

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      The 360 has a particular set of users that are unlikely to be that enthused about a motion capture camera. They can already go out and buy a Wii if they prefer to make their input without using a normal controller.

      That's kinda the point. MS want people to buy an XBox when they might buy a Wii instead.
      • I really doubt that this camera-based input system is going to be as innovative or ground-breaking as the Wiimote. And hasn't everyone in the world already bought a Wii anyway?

        Seriously though, I honestly believe that they're targetting the wrong group. Hardcore gamers aren't going to like an imprecise control system (and they'd have to come up with something unbelievably ahead of the current state of the art to get decent controls from a camera) and casual gamers probably aren't going to shell out for a
        • I guess the hardcore gamers are going to buy a 360 no matter what. They're already being marketed to.

          Casual gamers might not own a Wii yet, (they are still selling after all) and the XBox 360 is cheaper. Also a better choice if you like to dabble in online gaming but can't quite justify the price for that alone.

    • Yeah, didn't Microsoft already release a camera like the EyeToy for the 360 and a few games that used it? Maybe you and I have slipped into an alternate reality where they haven't yet?

      Or is there something radically new about this newer camera?

      • I can only imagine that this new camera has better resolution, or some built in hardware for motion capture. Either that or M$ are cashing in.

        As a fellow Xbox Live Vision camera owner, how much do you think it sucks on a scale of 1 to 10? I have to go straight for the 10...

  • No good. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @09:29AM (#27936641)

    There's a reason that even Hollywood still relies on external sensors for motion capture: machine vision is decades away from being able to do stuff like this. There is simply no way this will be any good, but then, I think that's part of the point: reinforce the 360 fanboys' perception that motion is bad by giving them a bad controller for motion.

  • The Eyetoy may not be an absolute killer ap, but games for the device do actually sell pretty well. They're popular with kids and kinda fun.

  • Sony already has this in the form of the EyeToy. The issue here is not so much the camera, but the software behind it and more importantly how easy it is for games developers to take advantage of the intelligence provided.

    There are plenty of examples of motion detection with cameras, but getting them to detect multiple moving objects, varying lighting conditions and so on is the challenge. I am not saying Microsoft will not succeed, I am simply saying that in many ways getting this to work perfectly is much

    • If Microsoft really is using the 3DV camera then it's not like the eyetoy, it measures the time of flight of IR from camera to surface to sensor for each pixel. It captures a depth map, lighting conditions are irrelevant for this function.

      • it measures the time of flight of IR from camera to surface to sensor for each pixel.

        Light source type can still have an impact. If you have tungsten lamps, halogens or any other strong source of IR, it can mess with with this. I discovered this the hard way with the Wiimote.

        • The measurement is done within a couple of nanoseconds ... any IR light source which is approximately constant during that time will not affect the it.

          • Well, unless the light is strong enough in comparison to the light emitted by the camera that it will saturate the ADC.

  • It can sense the motion of the XBox through your window when you get another red ring [today.com]. Sorry, E74.

    That said, twenty XBox lifts every morning will do waaay more for muscle-building than Wii Fit. Thus proving Microsoft's inherent superiority!

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      David Gerard's "Easy Does It" Comedy play book:

      1) Choose a target.
      2) Pick a negative trait or story about that target.*
      3) Spin the negative into a positive.
      4) Brag about the positive to appear like a zealot/troll.

      Works every time, if the reader's IQ is under 90.

      *Negative stories can easily found at BoycottNovell.com, provided by Roy Schestowitz, or from Twitter's journal. Both authors are personal friends of David.

  • not only will I be able to tea bag noobs in halo I can give them a cam show while doing it!
  • ... this concept of motion in front of a TV set. I thought television's primary application was to prevent all physical activity on the part of the viewer.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I remember sometime back on /. when WSJ was reporting rumors and the statement was basically the same: WTF WSJ? I thought they were supposed to be more tactful than that, or are they just trying to cope in a world where print is quickly dying (and the economic situation doesn't help either)?

  • While the camera in the wiimote points to the screen, Microsoft camera points at you !

    Who knows what they'll do with the pictures ?

  • As a former employee of Reactrix Systems (may it rest in peace), I know something of this space. We had this working a few years ago (ok, we were on Linux and using the Tyzx 3D camera.)

    I'm happy to see that MS bought 3DV. 3DV has been promising that their camera will be available at scale for years. I talked to them at GDC a year and a half ago. "It'll be out this summer." "Who's your manufacturer?" "Oh, we don't have one yet. We'll just get someone in Taiwan or China to do it. Manufacturers are a dime a

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