Miyamoto calls Microsoft motion ‘basic,’ says players ‘need something to hold’
Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 4:21pm by Boss Hog
In an interview with Wired, Nintendo’s killer-app had this to say about motion control finally becoming the industry standard:
“Looking at what the other companies have shown here at E3, it feels like they have finally obtained the very basic technology for doing motion control, but… I don’t think I could create an experience that truly feels interactive if you don’t have something to hold in your hand, if you don’t have something like force feedback that you can feel from the controller.”
While I still find Project Natal fascinating, I tend to agree with Miyamoto. Even Sony said “some experiences need buttons.” What do you think?
June 15th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I think he’s got it right. the funny thing is that out of the three motion technologies the wiimote+wii motion plus is the best equipped for hardcore games haha. natal is gonna be pure casual and without buttons sony cant really go very far with their device either.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Sony is absolutely right. Assuming that Natal ever comes out (it is highly likely this will turn into Microsoft Surface. It’s a farce.) they simply lack the level of interactivity that you need with a game. There is nothing tangible. Everything is too floaty.
I was playing House of the Dead: Overkill yesterday and I was thinking about how this really couldn’t be done with natal. Pointing, shooting, shaking off zombies.
I bet Microsoft is working on another Natal add-on for pointing and stuff like the Sony motion controller (which still just uses relative space. No infrared or anything like the TC4 gun or Wiimote).
June 15th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Hmm, I disagree with him. No controller could work very well. It all depends on the game. If games had an easily felt sense of control/flow like Super Monkey Ball or Mercury Meltdown Revolution on the Wii, then it could work.
Skating and snowboarding are more easily done, but something like a fighting game would take a lot of work to get it to feel right and force the player into the proper type of flow for fighting and recovering. A driving game really would be middle of the road. Most would more than like control like Excite truck, but be a bit difficult to recalibrate if a player breaks form during play.
The more you think of the positives and negatives of using Natal, the more issues and possibilities can be found. I believe that Natal as form of game input has potential, I also believed and still do believe that the ps3’s eyetoy has potential. It’s all a matter of whether or not anyone will take advantage of that potential and create great controlling games that create new standards for that type of input. I don’t think they will.
Microsoft isn’t too serious about Natal, how dare they show what should’v been a more creative or innovative use for that technology, but no real games or gameplay for it. What we got was essentially a lame version of De Blob and a “teaser”.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
You have to think outside the box. Just because Natal was demo’d without a physical control doesn’t mean that you can’t use one or that some games will require body motion + control.
To shake of zombies – throw your arms around and step to the side?
To shoot zombies imagine needing to use a light-gun. To combine gun-shooting and body motion in one game would be an excellent experience.
It’s true though that Microsoft’s biggest hurdle is and always will be providing that killer app.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
As I’ve mentioned, my wife made that same observation after watching the Project Natal video from E3: especially in the driving game sequence, the reason you put your hands up in the air in front of you when driving is because you are holding a wheel attached to an axle, not because it feels natural to do that. We tend to forget that because that’s the way we’ve always driven a car.
I just started playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 with Wii Motion Plus over the weekend, and I can tell you that I can’t see any possible way that I could feel comfortable swinging an air golf club to hit a virtual ball. I need to hold on to something, and that something better give me some kind of feedback, such as the Wii mote’s “clack!” when I hit the ball. Only hitting a real ball can feel more natural than that!
June 15th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
On the “plus” side, imagine all the extra money Microsoft will make by selling props to use with Natal Project.
After all, at one point people will want to feel like they’re actually holding a steering wheel or a sword or a gun.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
@Ian Dunlop
While I’m sure that would be a great experience (it’s been done to some extent with Pedal-and-gun shooters like Time Crisis) It really just means another add-on (that doesn’t exist on the 360) to buy with the Natal.
I would much rather dust off my Balance Board (as would, about 40 million other people) strap on my wii remote, and skii down a mountain, skeet-shooting in Mario and Sonic (they should really do it) and the main reason being is that I already own it. It’s already in so many homes and I won’t have to shell out even MORE cash for another body control device.
But ultimately, you are right. Even with the Wii it all comes down to support. If the Balance Board is any indication, we won’t be seeing much support outside of first party software.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
See I don’t like this. I wish Nintendo would pay the ultimate insult by not even acknowleding the competition when asked about it.
I don’t want to hear Nintendo trash talking the competition they way Sony and Microsoft do them. That’s sinking to an ugly level.
In all honesty Nintendo is my pride and joy, but I own systems from Sony and Microsoft. When I listen to the way those companies insult Nintendo, it almost makes me want them to fail sometimes. I don’t think any company should waste their time that way.
Look at Apple. It seems like 85% of their advertising efforts are aimed at making fun of the PC. Who gives a crap? Just market your product but not at the expense of insulting others. That’s why I will never have an Ipod.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Natal will bomb, and the Wii will become the hardcore powerhouse it should be.
People who take an idea from someone else, try to make it their own, then say, “We thought of this first, it’s completely revolutionary, and NINTENDO CAN SUCK IT for stealling our ideas” just piss me off.
Not only that, but the Wii Remote can do way more than a camera that follows movement. You need something on your person to make the experience real.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I do believe this is how things will look when all is said and done:
Winner: Nintendo.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
@Brian
Miyamoto never insulted the competition only stating that he couldn’t create interactive experiences with motion control without some kind of tactile feed back. Heck even Iwata was quoted welcoming sony and microsoft to the motion control world.
@Everyone
As far as Project Natal is concerned, without any physical objects it will not be able to replicate or improve on motion control over the wii.
What I think it will do, like the wii and ds before it, is present fresh takes on existng genres as well as creating new ones. Imagine a court room drama game a la pheonix wright where you interrogate witnesses, call objections, and present evidence to the jury who will react to you (like the Milo demo) all in first person using the voice recognition and body tracking of Natal. Experiences like that would be hard pressed ( no pun intended ) to be replicated on another system.
Hopefully Microsoft will learn now with natal what it took 3rd parties 3 years to learn on the wii, and that is you can’t just shoe horn motion control into anything and call it a compelling experience. Take advantage of what the hardware offers to craft new experiences (trauma center, let’s tap, warioware smooth moves) and improve on old ones (wii sports, tiger woods, gst, mario kart, the conduit).
The Milo demo offers a better path to compelling software. Using an air steering wheel in Burnout is just sayin “hey me too” instead of fun.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Now have me dreaming of Phoenix Wright on the 360. I’d love to hit my hands on a table than move into a pointing pose and yell objection. I’d like to do so with a game to react to me though.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
EyeToy 2.0. Even if it comes out, this is just more Microsoft marketing dollars being used to prevent or discourage people from buying a competing technology.
For once I agree with the marketing spin out of a Sony keynote: People need buttons or something tactile. Oh, and I agree with Miyamoto, too
June 15th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
some of this is true, and some of this isn’t. alot of the issues raised here with having something on hand isn’t an issue at all. i forsee the natal having so many plastic peripherals, that it would put wii to shame. for example golf, you just need a plastic golf club with no functionality whatsoever. however, it definitely has a disadvantage because there are no buttons. i suppose the voice activation part can suffice in some cases like yelling ’start’ or ‘next’ for example. what MS really needs to think about is how natal will work with first person shooters. do they need another peripheral with some buttons to make it work? fps’ is their biggest genre, and it will be interesting to see what solution they come up with. without some solution for their biggest genre, this natal business is doomed. although they may make a little money with tasteless mini game ports from wii.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
@ brian, its not so much an insult, as miyamoto is just welcoming them to his domain. nintendo’s been doing these controls for quite some time, and have quite an advantage in experience. is it cocky? not really. its reality. and its obvious, sony and MS are playing catchup. think about it. nintendo’s wii motion plus and 3rd party games are already in stores today. how long do you think it will take for MS and sony to get to that level? not just to release the devices even. but to get software support, and high quality games to show off the hardware. its gonna be some time before we see anything besides tech demos realistically.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
It needs some kind of physical device with a button to really become a viable alternative controller scheme…
June 15th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 12:11 am
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 1:19 am
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 1:57 am
[...] Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on Mario, Zelda, Project Natal and More [Game|Life via Infendo] [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 9:57 am
[...] [Wired thanks Infendo] Share and [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Buttons are not needed. Force-feedback, tactile sensation, sure. But buttons, not so much.
I’m not going to talk about Natal in particular, because who knows what software there’ll actually be for the bloody thing, but if you’re using pure mocap for your motion control, it actually solves a lot of problems if you’re trying to do certain things (and it’s wholly compatible with well, buttons, so it’s more flexible at least). The wiimote is unsuited to completely mimicing certain types of actions because there’s a hard limit on weight and balance. A wiimote will always be as big and as heavy as… well, a wiimote.
If you’re using mocap via cam, you can actually use properly weighted and sized items or rough equivalents where necessary. So that does allow for a different type of experience. Now, I’m not saying that for the home console market it actually makes sense to do this. Space limitations are probably a bigger concern than getting weight and size right. But if someone ever brought the concept of arcades back (with more modern sensibilities), a Natal like device would make a lot more sense. Communal spaces with prop equipment and mocap capable interfaces are in many ways a vastly superior solution for numerous types of games. Doing it in your living room, perhaps not so much.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
WOW the MS bots just hit infendo RUN! the revolution is over RUN!
June 16th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
i’ve been saying this since it was announce, natal looks spectacular, but some games need something to hold, and some games need buttons. I mean, how stupid would it be, playing a shooting style game, with no trigger, sure it can read the trigger motion your finger makes, but it’d just feel silly. the B button on the wiimote as a trigger is perfect.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I very much agree with Miyamoto, and what was said on the pod cast..was it infendo’s pod cast?…or GoNintendo…or the wiire? I can’t remember but it was said that the Natal would best be served out side the game world like in a television or computer interface. Although it is fascinating technology it should not limit itself to video games as other applications will be far more successful. I don’t just want to hold a controller (unless I am playing older games) and I don’t want motion sensing without something tangible to hold. The Wii remote and nunchuk is the perfect combination, they feel good, have motion sensing, rumble, and the right amount of buttons, the speaker. It’s a cool device. The Wii (GameCube 2.0) is a great little console and a wonderful experiment into the world of motion control and the video gaming is for everyone idea. I eagerly await “Wii HD” not only for the graphics, much expanded internal storage, improved online, but the control interface which will probably be updated with a microphone, higher quality speaker, slightly more ergonomic design, and 100% 1:1 with no attachment.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Well it didn’t help that the guy who revealed Project Natal say that it isn’t something stupid where you wave your arms around like an idiot.