Project NATAL and Tumbling down the rabbit hole?!

“We are all mad here , you know “, Said Cheshire cat .” I am mad , you are mad . “

“How do you know that I’m mad ? “ , said Alice.

“Of course you are mad”  , said Cheshire cat, “Only mad people come here “ .

                                                                                                                  Alice ’s adventures in Wonderland

If you have not heard from the new ambitious project currently being worked on by Lionhead studios called Project NATAL you need to check out the video bellow :

The first thing that crossed my mind while watching this part of Microsoft Press Conference at E3 09 was a hybrid of sadness and excitement . Almost all of us have seen the movie Matrix . The world of everything and nothing ; this rabbit hole seemed so amazing yet fake back when the movie was released . Being able to live in an imaginary world with people whom you like for as long as you want without having to worry about the dangers , frustration and hardships of real life is something that makes anyone happier .

Playing video games for many of us has always been the way to relieve ourselves of the stress and problems of real life . However, playing video games despite the solid frame-rates , dynamic shadows , superb textures and terrific animations can never take us completely out of this world or help us immerse ourselves deeply in a fictional world . After all , all we do is pressing ,holding and moving bunch of buttons .

Another fact is the nature of video games which regardless of the genre , number of endings , alternative game plays are literally linear and the gamers eventually observe the credit screen in the end . But what if a game starts and never ends ? That way the term “game “ would not be appropriate anymore .  Try to imagine that you can interact  with an endless world full of probabilities and opportunities !!!

Many of you agree with me that after coming home full of stress and anger because of  your professor , employer , cab driver ,your own mistakes.. etc,  nothing like crushing Zombie’s skulls in Dead Rising or tearing apart terrorists in Call of Duty or running over pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto makes you feel better !!!! .

Now try to imagine coming home with all the aforementioned problems and turning on your TV and talking to someone who has all the time in the world to listen to you , respond to you , make you laugh , force you into doing something relatively silly , ask your opinion , scrutinize your work , ask you about your shi** or wonderful day ….. .  It’s breathtaking even thinking about this issue .

Once again we come across the idea of everything and nothing , sanity or insanity ! There is no doubt that Project NATAL is nothing less than a ground breaking revolution and the grounds for this idea are not limited to a small boy in a small place by a lake . Project NATAL  and responsive AI can eventually and after years of progression help humanity reach levels of interactions that can only be described as magic even in the contemporary world .

Although we should never forget the sad side of this innovation ; The need to create such technology implies the deep level of loneliness of the modern world that is taking us farther and farther from each other . Maybe humanity will reach a point where it only interacts with fictional characters and places !!!

Nevertheless this technology that was debuted at this year’s E3 deserves a huge round of applause and only time will tell the benefits and harms of this plan , ….. this fabulous fable ……..

“ Wake up Alice dear “ said her sister  “ You’ve been asleep a long time “ .

“ Oh , I’ve had a very curious dream  “ Said Alice and she told her sister all about the strange adventures in her wonderful dream .

Daniel      

“We are all mad here , you know “, Said Cheshire cat .” I am mad , you are mad . “

“How do you know that I’m mad ? “ , said Alice.

“Of course you are mad”  , said Cheshire cat, “Only mad people come here “ .

                                                                                                                  Alice ’s adventures in Wonderland

If you have not heard from the new ambitious project currently being worked on by Lionhead studios called Project NATAL you need to check out the video bellow :

The first thing that crossed my mind while watching this part of Microsoft Press Conference at E3 09 was a hybrid of sadness and excitement . Almost all of us have seen the movie Matrix . The world of everything and nothing ; this rabbit hole seemed so amazing yet fake back when the movie was released . Being able to live in an imaginary world with people whom you like for as long as you want without having to worry about the dangers , frustration and hardships of real life is something that makes anyone happier .

Playing video games for many of us has always been the way to relieve ourselves of the stress and problems of real life . However, playing video games despite the solid frame-rates , dynamic shadows , superb textures and terrific animations can never take us completely out of this world or help us immerse ourselves deeply in a fictional world . After all , all we do is pressing ,holding and moving bunch of buttons .

Another fact is the nature of video games which regardless of the genre , number of endings , alternative game plays are literally linear and the gamers eventually observe the credit screen in the end . But what if a game starts and never ends ? That way the term “game “ would not be appropriate anymore .  Try to imagine that you can interact  with an endless world full of probabilities and opportunities !!!

Many of you agree with me that after coming home full of stress and anger because of  your professor , employer , cab driver ,your own mistakes.. etc,  nothing like crushing Zombie’s skulls in Dead Rising or tearing apart terrorists in Call of Duty or running over pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto makes you feel better !!!! .

Now try to imagine coming home with all the aforementioned problems and turning on your TV and talking to someone who has all the time in the world to listen to you , respond to you , make you laugh , force you into doing something relatively silly , ask your opinion , scrutinize your work , ask you about your shi** or wonderful day ….. .  It’s breathtaking even thinking about this issue .

Once again we come across the idea of everything and nothing , sanity or insanity ! There is no doubt that Project NATAL is nothing less than a ground breaking revolution and the grounds for this idea are not limited to a small boy in a small place by a lake . Project NATAL  and responsive AI can eventually and after years of progression help humanity reach levels of interactions that can only be described as magic even in the contemporary world .

Although we should never forget the sad side of this innovation ; The need to create such technology implies the deep level of loneliness of the modern world that is taking us farther and farther from each other . Maybe humanity will reach a point where it only interacts with fictional characters and places !!!

Nevertheless this technology that was debuted at this year’s E3 deserves a huge round of applause and only time will tell the benefits and harms of this plan , ….. this fabulous fable ……..

“ Wake up Alice dear “ said her sister  “ You’ve been asleep a long time “ .

“ Oh , I’ve had a very curious dream  “ Said Alice and she told her sister all about the strange adventures in her wonderful dream .

Daniel      

God, I want to use this.  It's evolved beyond a game for me.  It's more of my sci-fi curiousness. 

The fact they're showing it off means that it's not bullshit.  It definately works to an extent.

Will Wright once observed that actual artificial intelligence doesn't need to be reached because it's human nature to impose human emotions and intelligence to things that exhibit even rudimentary human-like behavior.  It's why we attribute anthropomorphic qualities to pets.  Also why work is being made in human-looking robots even though non-human shaped robot would probably be more functional.  I wonder if Mary Shelley would say about the direction this technology is headed in.  It may also be related to man's desire to create life and become God.

If we're going to get into weird Matrix quotes...

"Why, oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill..."

project MENTAL more like,

I agree if it works the way it is said to, then it is a huge step forward,

but i get the feeling that it would become its own form of entertainment, no longer a game as you say.

I seriously doubt microsoft can come up with a box that has reliable facial, voice and complete movement recognition which costs less than 300 US.  The main appeal of games is being able to do things that you cant do in real life, for example kill people or drive a ferrari on a race track. The skeptic in me still believes that the technology shown will not be able to effectively and accurately capture the more advanced motions needed to play most games. In the average FPS you have the ability to jump, so with NATAL you have to physically jump in real life?  As for the AI, it  can never replace human beings, no matter how interactive or smart. If you need to tell your problems to a fake human being thats just sad.

The whole Milo thing creeps me out a bit. It just doesn't look right to me. I'm sure it works to an extent like Smug said, but part of me wants to believe the whole thing was just a video, synchronized to a tee.

Hell, if it does actually work out and is released to the masses some day, Michael Jackson will finally have a reason to buy a 360 *rimshot* Thank you! *Dodges Tomatoes*.

Sci-Fi writers havn't thought of this yet?

Typical Molyneux bullshit.

If any of this is true it heas the potential to basicly be the ships computer from Star Trek. If not, it's the next Hello!: Pikachu.

That is exactly why I want this new breakthrough in technology! I just want to be able to mess around with it and mess with it. Imagine telling Milo that he's just an artificial intelligence in a TV and see how he responds. It'd be hilarious.

no controller seems kind of limiting as to what you can do

^ This is the starting project and will become more and more sophisticated as the technology advances .Take a look at X360's controller and compare it to the SNES's !!! The difference is huge .

I can only imagine the possibilities in games....

I thought the same exact same thing when I witnessed Peter's "artificial intelligence". The fact that we, as a species, are separating from each other in a social state is quite scary. I always heard stories from my parents that constant amounts of children and adults were outside, doing social activities that seemed normal and obvious in that day of age. Now, as interior entertainments are growing in size, the population in the outside world is dwindling. War, vehicles, and echoes are the only things that exist in the outside world.

Is it coming to an end of a line on where we are socially limited because of fear, lack of dialogue, and shyness?  Jesus fucking Christ, man. It's scary. It's almost as if we're close to a disturbing, but peaceful future where in-doors is the world.

I actually feel like this is a necessary step. As you said, games always have an end to their content. However, this is bigger than games. In my opinion, one of the biggest flaws of any story, whether it be in a fictional book, movie or video game, is that the characters in them don't actually exist, at least in a way where you could interact with them. All you read, watch, or play is all you get, until the sequel, unless they fuck things up. However with this, theoretically, you'd be able to talk to those interesting people. I imagine people sitting in front of their TV sets all day talking to virtual people.

I am not as impressed as some of you . As someone who follows on the subject of AI I see it as nice novelty  but Natal and Milo will still be limited to what they program them to be. There still many problems with a learning AI system and I won't say it shit ot it is the shit until I actually get to see how it functions in an uncontrolled environment. I am sorry but it's still Microsoft who are heading this project and Frankly the name Microsoft does not come together with technological brake-troughs or innovation. 

That is exactly what I am talking about .

Of course the current knowledge of AI is not vast enough to create 100% responsive AI but as we go forward the technology will ultimately allows us to create an AI that is capable of learning and when that point is reached then the AI starts learning just like toddlers do.  

I just hope that Natal will work like they want it too, I always like to see new tech in the gaming world.

It seems awesome, but sadly my experience won't be all that great because I have a projector, which means that in order to see the screen clearly, the room needs to be dark.  But Natal needs good lighting to function.

I'm thinking about getting some form of light that will shine directly at us, opposite of the screen.  That way we'll be well lit, and the screen won't mess up.