Xbox marks the spot: a definitive new take on virtual reality?
Project Natal: through the looking glass finally?
One of the most eye-catching launches at the E3 gaming conference earlier this month was Microsoft’s first viewing of their Project Natal controller. However, there is another story there which goes beyond gaming gadgets and how the Xbox may be shaping up against rivals Sony and Nintendo. The Project Natal interface looks to be redefining how virtual and non virtual worlds ( i.e. the real world) interact.
A lot of people doing good work developing information or education services in virtual worlds – many of them in SecondLife, fantasise about a point in time when their non-virtual friends and colleagues no longer develop an indulgent smile at any serious mention of “video games”. Their preaching will all have been worthwhile as enlightenment dawns on the many. In the interim they console themselves with the Gartner 2007 finding that 80% of active internet users will have an avatar in the not too distant future.
I was very sympathetic to that view myself until recently when I started to wonder if virtual worlds will eventually develop a wider user base in ways which have less to do with getting an avatar and more to do with the way other e-services do: by integrating and supporting real life services.
The future of shopping
Project Natal is a a hands-free control system that recognises facial expressions and body movements but the potential is goes way beyond a hands free Wii. The two screen shots (top and right) are taken from this video from the BBC. In the first a presenter is talking to a virtual character called Milo who, we are told, can recognise not only our voices and even faces but also reads our mood. The presenter has been coached to prompt the conversation in certain directions and it is clear this is a computer sponsored exchange. Nonetheless, the range of emotions displayed by Milo through facial expressions and body language is very impressive and clearly a natural empathy develops on the part of the presenter. At one point Milo encourages the presenter to reach inside a (virtual) pool which he happens to be sitting beside. Visible on the screen is her reflection and the disturbed pattern of the water.
The second example gives a hint of the future of virtual shopping. This, incidentally, is a popular virtual pastime but has more to do with making an avatar look good than checking whether that tie goes with this shirt for tomorrow’s occasion. In the video, the perfect teenage daughter bounces into the living room and greets the Xbox. The system recognises her voice and brings up her virtual buddy who apparently knows that teen daughter is on the lookout for a dress. Virtual buddy summons up an array of possibles she has selected from various local stores and teen daughter flicks through them as if they were on a hanger beside her. No sooner has she chosen one (through pointing) than a virtual replica of herself reflecting (presumably reflecting her measurements) appears on the screen modelling the dress and acts as a virtual mirror – turning on screen to display the back, for example.
If anything was ever worthy of the description game changing this is it. Nintendo started it and there are an increasing number of peripherals which give games a more tangible feel to virtual experiences but that is the limit of what they are trying to do: make games more fun. Microsoft meanwhile may have done for virtual what the iphone has done for the mobile interface. Others will surely catch up but if Microsoft can really deliver on this, virtual experiences will soon be split between clicking in a make believe world and apparently walking around something we can almost touch.
For me the conclusions are that the future of virtual experiences won’t be limited by uptake or not of the current crop of virtual worlds: it is virtual experiences which overlay and blend with our real lives in ways we are only working out now. Virtual worlds will continue and thrive but will not define our experience of virtual reality.
More on Milo below.
