Project Natal

Hey,

This is going to be one of THOSE posts. Like when I posted about the Nintendo Wii and how stupid it was. I did get hyped on it, and I have one, but it collects dust when my sister doesn't want to play Guitar Hero. Xbox 360 is just so much better when it comes to games. There is no contest. I went into the E3 conference this year with high hopes that Xbox would continue their dominance of the gaming industry, and for most of the conference I was insanely pleased. Left 4 Dead and Crackdown sequels, two new Halo games, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking integration, stealing Metal Gear from Sony, these were all blockbuster announcements. Then, they said that they have just one more thing. Last year, that turned into Final Fantasy on Xbox, which put a cap on a great press conference. This year, the next thing was Project Natal, a 3-D motion camera that allows people to play games with their whole bodies instead of a controller.

I died a little inside.

Let me quickly and coherently, before I lose it from my head, give you a straight, from the gut reaction to this new future of gaming, in list form.

• First things first, I've said this before, but Xbox is the console of REAL gamers. We have the Halos and the Gears, so any chance to compete with Wii is completely ruined by parents who don't want their kids around blood and chatting with Adults over XBL. Microsoft needs to continue playing to their console's strengths, instead of making it an all around player.
• To add on to that point, Microsoft was talking about how gaming was being limited by having to use a controller, and added examples of how movies, books, and TV are loved by everyone. Well, newsflash Microsoft, but everyone, and I mean EVERYONE that I have grown up with in my 20 years are familiar with game controllers. That means that given maybe two generations of people, and you are selling a product that 100% of adults are familiar with.
  
• Second, if you saw the demo you could see how imprecise the movements were all around. It reminded me of the Warhawk PS3 demo a few years back that had the plane shaking violently and grinding on walls. A year passes, the only other major game to come out of that was Lair, and that game was so bad it shuttered Factor 5. Didn't really sell the whole motion thing with that did it? With the demos I saw today, I don't see this as any different.
• I wont get into it for long, but dear god was that little boy creepy or what? Maybe I'm alone, and this is weird coming from someone who spends most of their time IMing and Twittering, but when you go that far to simulate a human experience, I'd rather just be talking with a real person who's thoughts aren't programmed to be likable to everyone. I'd rather argue with a real person, then wave my hands in the air and "play" with Milo. That being said, Disney is going to eat this kind of stuff up for their theme parks, and that is an environment where I can see this technology working well.

Now that my opinions are out of the way, I'd like to add onto this post a little personal fears with this type of technology. I don't know if any of you out there are aware of this, but I was born with a nerve disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth. I was the first person in my family to be diagnosed with it, and later my father and grandmother both found out that their lifelong weaknesses were from this disease that they had. To make a long story short, because of this disease I can't run fast, I can't write with a pencil or pen, and I get tired very easily from any sort of physical activity.

My dad had an NES before I was born, so my entire life gaming has allowed me to escape reality and do things that were hard for me to do in the real world. Moreso than others, I was living life through the game, and when Xbox Live and Halo 2 came out, I had finally found something that I could train at and compete with my friends. But my friends weren't always playing Halo 2. Sometimes they played DDR or Guitar Hero, and I was forced to sit in the corner and watch on. I've tried, but both of those games are impossibly difficult for me, and I learned to accept that.

With the Wii came a new acceptance. Wii games are not impossible for me, and I'm pretty good with a Wii Wheel on Mario Kart, but if possible I always grab my Gamecube controller and use that, because it doesn't make me tired, and I can play long hours without worry. I was almost glad to see the Wii devolve into an unpopular choice for anyone but the casual, so I didn't have to worry about the great games I'd be missing because of my handicap. Rock Band and the new Guitar Heroes blasting off were harder, because it's a truly interactive way to listen to music, and I'm shut out of it. All my friends had these great instrument setups, and every LAN party i've gone too for a long time has had a couple of guitars handy, but I couldn't play. I would love to play Guitar Hero Metallica every day, but it's impossible for me.

With this new annoucment, Microsoft has both disappointed and terrified me. I'm disappointed because unlike Nintendo, Microsoft's motion controls look to use your entire body, with you standing and getting into the action. This is something I can't do for long, so anything built on the platform is already off limits to me. And if I feel this bad about it, I can only imagine how Xbox fans in wheelchairs feel. This terrifies me because, unlike with the Wii Balance Board, Eye-Toy, or XBL Vision, Microsoft is looking to integrate Project Natal into all facets of Xbox. I don't want gaming to pass me by as a person. I don't want this to be a success, because this combined with the Wii would have all the game companies making Wii like consoles for the next generation, making game controllers obsolete. And the controller is the only way that I can continue to interact with gaming. Simply put, I would not know what to do with myself if controllers become a thing of the past.

So Microsoft and Xbox, I hope I misjudged you. I hope my comparisons to Warhawk and Lair were right on the money, and Project Natal becomes the next Virtual Boy disaster. Because, truth be told, the presentation looked amazing, and I fear that in the next generation of consoles, I'll have to find something else to help me escape the horrible run down body that I'm stuck with. I think I need to go lie down.

-Pudge