POSTED BY

Brandon Boyer

AT 7:36 AM
Thursday June 11, 2009

Xbox 360

microsoft • natal • ratatat

Late night Natal: Microsoft's motion control makes its network TV debut

I expect this YouTube video to get unceremoniously yanked in T-minus 59 minutes or less, but for now, you can see a mind-bogglingly wicked six-degrees cross-cultural explosion as Microsoft's Project Natal is publicly unveiled on Jimmy Fallon's late-night show to the tune of Ratatat's Bruleé (!), with The Office's John Krasinski (also director of my highly anticipated adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men) and True Blood star Stephen Moyer each taking their turns at the Cosmic Smash-esque demo.

I'm pretty sure that's game-set-match on some version of hipster-gamer bingo.

Previously:
0

9 Comments

RedShirt77

#1 – 10:29 AM June 11, 2009

Does it come with the Red jumpsuit?

Clearly recognition still has a few issues.

Felix Mitchell

#2 – 11:04 AM June 11, 2009

I drive sitting down.

Also, in the demo that's meant to show the natal gives good control, all the people playing including the lead developer crash all over the place. Not very impressive.

Lemon

#3 – 11:06 AM June 11, 2009

Love the guests reactions and surprised buy how quickly they picked it up.

The Red Jumpsuits seems weird, when people didn't need it at E3. Wonder if they dressed like that for another segment, would love to see that.
(joystiq says so too http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/11/video-project-natal-invades-late-night-with-jimmy-fallon/ )

Oh and can't wait for True Blood to begin again. Wonder what happened to the flamboyant cook.

Lemon

#4 – 11:22 AM June 11, 2009

@2 Felix Mitchell

Not final product.

Agree their driving skills not impressive, but if it was their first time on a regular controller same thing would have happened. But they would probably have taken even more time to learn the controls.

Agies

#5 – 11:27 AM June 11, 2009

I don't know exactly why, but every time I see him I can't help but think that Kudo Tsunoda is a douche. Maybe it's the sunglasses. Could you maybe take them off and engage people with your eyes? You are a project manager not a fucking rockstar. Seriously, he doesn't have the batshit insanity of an Itagaki or the enthusiasm of a J Allard to pull it off.

Felix Mitchell

#6 – 12:50 PM June 11, 2009

@4 Lemon

If it's not the final product, and the experience of the people playing is not typical, then what was the point? Tsunoda said that the driving game was being shown to demonstrate that fine control was possible, but it didn't.

If all it takes is a couple of hours to get familiar with the controls, why didn't they set the system up in the green room and give the guests some practice?

This was just an excuse to yell hype at TV viewers.

Lemon

#7 – 2:00 PM June 11, 2009

@5
Of course the point is to build up hype, I guess they want to earn money after all.

And I think the guests did very good for people who just got their hand on a new interface. You should have seen me when I first tried Grand Turismo with a controller. Crashed at every turn.

And yeah the fact that fine control is possible and working didn't show to well in the video but if you ask the players they would probably tell you another story, at least this reporter do: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/11/hands-on-project-natal-burnout/#continued

From where I am sitting they get the point across that the interface is easy to get into and fun, across very successfully.

AirPillo

#8 – 4:13 PM June 11, 2009

Remember when the Wiimote was new and people were putting the controllers through their televisions?

Imagine the pictures/videos for this: people pummeling the TV with their head or fist.

RedShirt77

#9 – 9:13 PM June 11, 2009

What they are not telling you.

Cost

Leave a comment