Natal, Burnout, Backwardly Compatible

Seems like National Shane Kim day.

Posted by Staff
Fox loves Shaney! God we're mature.
Fox loves Shaney! God we're mature.
Microsoft exec, Shane Kim has followed up on John Schappert's statement at the Microsoft E3 09 briefing that introduced Project Natal, that "It's "our vision... It will work with every Xbox 360 sold and to be sold".

Speaking to Gamasutra, Kim states: "(Publishers and developers will decide) whether they’ll enhance existing games or use them in games going forward".

Then using Burnout Paradise as an example, he says, "It’s not like we went into the source code. You can take an existing game, and make it work."

Impressive, we can't wait for our first minority report on the device.

In other Shane News... Not content with bitch-slapping the enemy, Microsoft's Interactive Business Development VP (according the Fox News), recently had an exchange with Alexis Glick of the subtly entitled "Money for Breakfast" show over at Fox Business in the USA.

Startlingly, Glick didn't let Shane's get away with a non-response to her question: "This will work for existing Xbox holders, how does it work? I mean, just plain sense, what is it like?"

His response to the idea that Natal will work for existing Xbox 360 owners? "Well, the irony is that we created an amazingly simplistic experiences for consumers as well as our development partners yet by taking a very complex hardware and even more complex software and putting all of that together to enable these amazing experiences that we are able to demonstrate yesterday at our press briefing.

"Steven Spielberg was on stage to help us unveil it. He's been fascinated by the technology behind Project Natal and as a creative visionary sees what's going to be possible with Project Natal."

Ms Glick... "OK. So... but, Shane, you didn't answer that for me in the way that I was hoping, which is... OK, I'm at home. I've got my Xbox. It is the cornerstone of the Glick household. (to which Shane responds, "I remember that") OK? Everybody is sitting there."

Thus prompted to move away from the guff... Shane then outlined the functionality stating that Natal, "is a very sophisticated sensor that includes an RGB camera, a 3D depth sensor so you can move around in space, as you naturally would. A multi-array microphone so... you know, what that enables is full body gesture tracking so you can use your head, your hands, your feet.

"We can sense whether or not you're sitting down or standing up. It's got facial recognition as well as voice recognition so you can have multiple people involved in the entertainment experience and we'll be able to discern between people even if they move between each other and include the camera.

"We can detect when one person answers a question, let's say, to a trivia game versus another person. You can walk up to your Xbox 360 and will immediately recognize you through our facial recognition software."


You can find the transcript here.

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