Augmented Reality Shaping the Future of Games 56
Slatterz writes "Microsoft's Natal can recognize a player's skeletal structure, and also perform some sophisticated translation of body physics into in-game movement. As a control mechanism this is fascinating, but the next step is to merge the game graphics with the real world. Now, basic examples of augmented reality (AR) are being shown using a mobile phone, unlike previous demos which have involved walking around with a large backpack strapped to your body. A game titled Arhrrrr blends live-action video overlaid with game graphics. The processing is taken care of by Nvidia's new Tegra platform, while the game's 'maps' are generated by pointing the phone's camera (in this case 5MP) at a 2D drawing/printout lying on a table. The end result is a 3D world which seems to spring forth in real time, with buildings popping up as players move around the game 'map.' This story shows two other interesting videos demonstrating AR, including the ability to add real-life objects into the virtual game world and have the gameplay respond and react accordingly."
Ready? (Score:2, Informative)
As far as I know, Natal is still vaporware with some sexy CGI and PR. The live demonstration seemed crude when compared to the promising, albeit slightly ambitious CGI-movies.
I realize that the technology to enable such a contraption as Natal are already available, but I doubt that Microsoft is ready to develop for such a system, and I also doubt that most of Xbox's fanbase is ready for this change in how people play games. Not sure if Microsoft should be betting all it's money on Natal.
Re:Ready? (Score:3, Informative)
Well Microsoft have already shipped out 1000 dev kits to 3rd party developers so the technology is clearly ready to develop with.
I've not seen any evidence of CGI yet, there seems little reason to think what's shown isn't real, certainly the Milo demo was pre-scripted of course because AI isn't that advanced but certainly there's no reason it wasn't responding to the given inputs via Natal as was suggested. Similar if you have a look on YouTube there's a few videos of various people using the system at E3. It's not as if the technology that comprises Natal is even all that groundbreaking, it's just the fact they've used all these bits of technology (facial recognition, depth sensing etc.) in conjunction with each other to produce something capable of a lot more. We've seen things like the Eyetoy and Live vision cam, Natal is different only in that it adds depth sensing to the equation to make it a lot more useful so again although it looks impression there's nothing about it theoretically that suggests there is any reason Microsoft would need to fake demos of it.
I've said it before, I still think it's a way off, a good 18 months to two years away if not only because the 3rd party developers only got dev kits a month ago and they need at least that time to produce an AAA title that will make use of it.
Regarding Microsoft putting all their money on Natal, I don't think they are, at very least it just augments what's already there. There's no reason you couldn't play Ghost Recon as normal but then use hand signals to command your ghost and point at where they should take cover, or physically move to dodge incoming projectiles for example.
It doesn't have to be used as a full blown setup where the old is eliminated altogether somewhat like with the Wii but again, even that had the classic controllers produced for it and even the Wiimotes could be used in a similar fashion to a classic controller if really need be.