The reasons why lay in concerns about latency issues, cost, and processing power. Apparently, without a a co-processor, Natal could use up to 15% of a console system’s processing power. What this means is that most of the games on the market today may not work with Natal, simply because an Xbox 360 unit would not be able to process the demand. Of course, adding a co-processor is where the cost problem comes in (a problem both Nintendo and Sony would not go for). Microsoft has chosen to deal with this issue by letting the 360 take the strain of doing Natal’s calculations, rather then incurring the cost of a co-processor. As for latency, the concern is that the companies have no control over lighting in a player’s room, and in incorrect light the camera may have problems tracking people.
Hence, these are the reasons why two of the big three decided that the 3DV tech was not for them. Instead, Nintendo went with the Motion Plus add-on, and Sony opted for the technology that is in PlayStation Move.
Dr. Richard Marks explains why Sony decided on a light, camera, and instrument solution for gesture-based gaming, instead of the 3D camera tech:
The thought and technology going into Move seems to suggest that it was more then just a “me too” response from Sony. It’s also interesting to think that Natal has the possibility of just being a slightly better EyeToy. Granted, I see a lot more potential for the tech behind Natal than that, but perhaps Sony is on track to having the correct solution for gaming. Of course we’ll have to wait and see what happens as we get out hands on all three to compare.
“Sometimes a tech demo doesn’t translate into a product very well, for example, [in the tech demo] we were tracking those colored balls, but since there’s no light in the ball or anything like that, the lighting in the room has to be good enough for the camera to see the color reliably and that makes for a difficult product when you don’t have a control over those variables. And with the 3D camera it’s a little bit similar that we found that there were some things we wanted to be able to do and sometimes it wouldn’t work reliably for what we wanted to do.”
Do you think Sony and Nintendo made the right move, or will they sit back and watch as Microsoft comes to dominate the world of motion-based gaming? Also, do you think that Sony’s Move will make the Wii obsolete, as some experts are saying?
Source: PlayStation Lifestyle
