Sony Patents A Motion Control System That Uses Ordinary Objects As Controllers

FamilyGuy - 167 days 22 hours ago

this was something that was a selling point with the PSEye.
I wonder if by patenting this will they cause hiccups in certain dev ideas about natal, like hold this thing and it will be something in the game.

this is going to get interesting.

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heroicjanitor - 167 days 21 hours ago

But seriously Family Guy is right this could throw a spanner in the works of Natal... The possibilities for this are endless, like painting in games using a paintbrush you own, or beating a guy to death using baked beans, or ketchup or something...

Edit: Like themyk said, maybe it is just to get ms to bend on in game music?

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Raiinstorm81 - 167 days 21 hours ago

This can eliminate the need for a bunch of periphials. Dont worry MS will be responding soon with something.

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pumpkinpunker - 167 days 21 hours ago

No one remembers the E3 Natal tech demo that showed the kid scanning his skateboard for use in the game? MS already has the tech to do something similar so this won't affect Natal.

@Ju
do you know how patents work? you can't file a patent for a concept that has been publicly demoed to millions of people a month after the fact. If I play a song that I wrote on America's Got Talent and it isn't copyrighted someone can't turn around and try to copyright that same song without me eventually winning a lawsuit.

I highly doubt MS, a company much larger than Sony, would demo a technology without having all their appropriate patents in line. let's get real, people. it's one thing to be excited at this potential new use for Eyetoy but you guys all look really desperate when you're excited at the prospect of limiting Natal.

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Ju - 167 days 21 hours ago

That would affect Natal very much should the patent grant Sony exclusive access to "ordinary" peripherals. In fact, that was a strong argument for Natal to not use any sort of controllers, but whatever you want to use.

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UltimateIdiot911 - 167 days 21 hours ago

Scanning a picture and using it as a controller are two different concept.

Just like Sony's Eyepet, you can scan what you draw and play with it. The Natal demo shows a kid scanning a skateboard image but the kid isn't using the skateboard itself.

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Soldier one - 167 days 21 hours ago

Id think thats differnt, thats just getting a design on the board type of thing. The cool thing is Sony has already been doing this idea with Eye Pets, you can draw something then scan it in and it becomes a part of the game. Like a car or something, was extremely neat.

Good thing sony is patenting their ideas they had already, before Natal and MS tries to steal more things.

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Ju - 167 days 21 hours ago

The patent and MS techdemo have nothing to do. Sony's patent must be based on their own research and also must be well documented. BTW: This very same concept can be seen from a public presentation from Sony which was held somewhere in 2003 or 2004. No matter what MS showed, if that was not patented at the time, and Sony can claim the original idea (which was way before MS showed it), and Sony gets the patent granted, then that's what it is. No matter if MS showed it or not. MS can fight it and claim the public presentation to be before Sony's patent was filed. But, and I am pretty sure, the patent filed now can claim to be a result of research taking place since 1999.

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Raiinstorm81 - 167 days 21 hours ago

Where you get the skateboard in your game, i can control my game with the skateboard. So if i choose to i could use the nintendo zapper as a gun in COD or a real gun or use a lightsaber toy as a sword for a game it will be 3d mapped as a controller.

Edit @ below:

Exactly but when you speak the truth on this site fanboys scream FANBOY. Natal is an updated eyetoy plain and simple. PS3 motion updated wiimotion with eyetoy tech. Dont let the MS advertising machine fool you like it did the media.

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rockleex - 167 days 21 hours ago

Watch the video in this article.

http://n4g.com/events_e3200...

At some point in the video, Dr. Richard Marx uses the Eyetoy to capture a real world object he had. With that, they were able to do 3D tracking for the object.

Seriously, all the Natal ideas had been created 5 years earlier by Sony with the usage of Eyetoy and/or the Z Camera. All shown and talked about thoroughly in the video link I posted above.

After Sony decided not to go forward with these ideas, 3DV were left with some awesome tech demos made by Sony for their Z Camera. Yes, the tech demos for 3DV's Z camera were made by Sony. Microsoft bought 3DV after seeing those tech demos. Thus Natal was created.

Sony has been working on MANY different motion controller methods for a VERY long time, I'm sure you guys remember all those patents last year. But it seems as if Natal has forced Sony to show even more of what they have up their sleeves.

@Disagrees:
Didn't even watch the video did you? ^_^

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Microsoft Xbox 360 - 167 days 21 hours ago

pumpkinpunker wrong as usual.

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doG beLIEfs - 167 days 21 hours ago

I hope Sony uses this tech as well. They have obviously incorporated it into Eyepet but I would like to see this released as a FREE PS EYE (not Eye Toy...that is PS2) app.

Sony comes up with so many good ideas yet they seem to not want to take the risk of putting these ideas into actual products sometimes.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Then there is this video....clearly there are some neat things going on over at Sony, they just need to make these great ideas into REAL products.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

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Biggunz - 167 days 20 hours ago

M$ a larger company? Lets see, Sony total assets 230.5 billion, M$ total assets 72.7 Billion. Sony is much larger then M$.

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IdleLeeSiuLung - 167 days 20 hours ago

I think this would be more of an issue of going after third party developers more than anything primarily because MS doesn't need to make this available to third parties and just allow them to implement their own.

The only recourse then for Sony is to go after the third party developer/publisher and not MS.

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Hutch2355 - 167 days 20 hours ago

Actually, tangeble assets, which is the amount of assests after debts taken off, Msoft 22 billions, sony 17 billion, not to mention the difference in market cap, not even close, or the amount of liquid cash available. Sorry, Sony loses money right now, msoft makes billions in profit even in this economy.

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GiantEnemyCrab - 167 days 19 hours ago

Great post Why Dis. Some good info there. But unfortunately you are wasting your time.. It's the "me too!!" sense of entitlement and as far as most folks here all they see is an EyeToy which just shows the ignorance.

Sony did this 4 years ago in imagination land with a tech demo that never was a reality.. I didn't see Sony on TV or anywhere demoing this stuff for real.. but hey it's Sony and they can't be anything but honest right?

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Major_Tom - 167 days 17 hours ago

Ahah, @Crabby, just like Natal right?

'Microsoft': Me too!

Easily done and done.

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mastiffchild - 167 days 12 hours ago

And not just that. The console manufacturers constantly rip ideas from each other. Avatars are just Mii's, Lips is a blatant Singstar ripoff, You're in ... etc , etc.

Sony definitely had lots of the ideas shown in the Naral presentation years ago yet the likes of Eyepet and Eyedentify are still yet to arrive but if Sony want to protect what they feel they unvented why not patent it if they can?

WD and GEC-Sony certainly aren't saints at all and there are areas of Naral that are MS own work but the fact is MS have a history of hijacking the ideas of others which isn't restricted to the gaming industry either so the accusations are not without precedent are they?

I'm no legal expert and have, like all on here, no idea how this will turn out-in fact about as much idea as anu of us have that either Natal or Sony's motion stuff actually works that well right now.

This is one we'll just have to watch and maybe along the way we'll find out exactly who did what first.

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joe382 - 167 days 11 hours ago

http://www.gametrailers.com...

Isn't it awesome.

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Buttons - 167 days 9 hours ago

Wait till I Manhunt the hell out of something with clever usage of my eating utensils.

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cliffbo - 167 days 8 hours ago

YES!

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Sarick - 167 days 8 hours ago

I thought patent laws worked by proof of concept.

It's clear that Sony was developing this since around 2001. If that's the case if they can prove they where first it could be a major setback for the scanning technology.

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thegood33 - 167 days 7 hours ago

I'm starting to feel sad for sony. Their failures this generation are nothing short of monumental, and it just deosn't seem to be getting any better.

And if you people really think this patent is going to somehow shut down natal, you are a fool. Well, never mind, this is N4G after all.

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gaffyh - 167 days 6 hours ago

Technically, if Sony is granted this patent, it means that MS can't use a similar concept with Natal. Which means you'll always have to have an imaginary wheel or an imaginary bat. Whereas the PSEye could use an actual thing so that you don't feel like an idiot when you are playing a game.

So if MS do want to do this, Sony could sue them, but I dunno if it would actually stand up in court.

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randomwiz - 167 days 6 hours ago

yeah... thats an interesting point

looks like Sony's trying to be Nintendo/Microsoft at the same time

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peeps - 167 days 4 hours ago

talking about that kid scanning his skateboard in to be used by natal, did you notice when he held it up his hand was covering part of the bored yet somehow natal got the whole pictue, even the part of the image covered by his hand..... lol

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Blaze929 - 167 days 2 hours ago

Project Natal pretty much said the same thing. Funny how it takes a mere subtlety to change some people's reception.

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cmrbe - 166 days 22 hours ago

have already done this. Check out this PS eye tank demo.

http://www.ps3news.com/Play...

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UltimateIdiot911 - 167 days 22 hours ago

I have to wonder what this mean for the Natal. I know there are people who said that they can use everyday object as a way to FPS using the Natal, now that's out which leaves the option of using a physical or swinging your arms around.

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FamilyGuy - 167 days 22 hours ago

I think this patent is completely just to halter natal. You can hold things but now M$ can't suggest holding things without violating sony patent/paying royalties.

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themyk - 167 days 21 hours ago

thats cool. ms wants to patent allowing ingame music. sony gets them with this. maybe they can make a deal. it's all so silly.

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kissmeimgreek - 167 days 18 hours ago

im interested in seeing what MSs rebuke tot his will be. surely they must have thought to patent their tech or make sure some one like sony doesnt steal their thunder. one more thing,i know next to nothing about patents but isnt it true tha you can patent ways to make technology possible. what im saying is sony and Mss ways might be different but maybe that doesnt matter whatever.

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Raf1k1 - 167 days 22 hours ago

I think it depends on the game and how devs use the tech.

There will undoubtably be games that will not require a controller at all (most likely smaller games on Live), games where you use a controller with parts that require interaction using Natal and also games which will only use a controller.

The controller is not going to disappear any time soon that's for sure.

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themyk - 167 days 21 hours ago

unless u only want to play stupid wii crap games. if you want to play anything good ull need some sort of controller. either way the last thing i want to do is actually use my whole body to kill people in cod. i mean come on. natal, wii, sony motion is good for crap games but not core games. i think sonys will work 1:1 and the controller with buttons, but i don't really care for any of it for core games.

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kissmeimgreek - 167 days 18 hours ago

natal can work in hardcore games IF combined with a controller. for instance, bungie has stated teir interested in the possibility of natal ech in reach. bun gie wouldnt be stupid enough to throw out the controller. i also dont see what stopping MS from releasing different controllers. like a sony motion controler cept withot motion tracking since thats what natal is meant to do.

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UltimateIdiot911 - 167 days 22 hours ago

Yes, the only way around it is if they come up with another way of detecting the object or simply do what Sony did and make a controller.

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pumpkinpunker - 167 days 21 hours ago

the E3 demo for natal showed the kid scanning his skateboard for use in the game. Natal already has the tech to do this. this will not affect Natal.

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Ju - 167 days 21 hours ago

^^ this has nothing to do if Natal showed that or not. Its a legal thing. And if that's what it is, I can imagine a pretty harsh blow for MS and its project Natal. Curious, didn't MS saw that coming ?

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Odion - 167 days 20 hours ago

it means nothing when it comes to Natal, MS has one way to do this, and now Sony does

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lloyd_wonder - 167 days 22 hours ago

Sony developed the best technology for motion controls with a *camera. Microsoft was forced to develop Natal because they can't use Sony or Nintendo's tech without getting sued out the ***, and now they're pretending like it's the next big thing.

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themyk - 167 days 21 hours ago

u have to admit MS's marketing team must be nothing but witches and wizards. cause they can market the sh1t out of stuff. i mean something like natal that any true gamer can see right through as nothing but crap. and the wizards at MS have the whole country thinking it's the second coming. it's incredible. it wouldn't surprise me if natal is 200 bucks and sells 1 million the first day.

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GiantEnemyCrab - 167 days 21 hours ago

Yeah right Lloyd.. it worked so well hardly anything was ever released for motion with the Eyetoy or EyeCamera and most of it was tech demos.

The company they bought was the leader of this tech and now MS owns all of it.

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PirateThom - 167 days 21 hours ago

The technology behind EyeToy was sound, it's shown it worked well and had uses in a casual sense. However, motion controls were never a big deal until Wii.

Wii had motion controls as standard and it was aimed at a casual audience from day 1.

Like Sony's motion controllers and Natal, if developers aren't forced to use a perhiperhal which limits their user base, they won't.

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PirateThom - 167 days 21 hours ago

Someone is bitter. How adorable.

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Microsoft Xbox 360 - 167 days 21 hours ago

Xbots these days have quite an imagination. The only thing that runs through their brains are vibrators and pink dildo's. So sad.

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apena89 - 167 days 16 hours ago

Microsoft is THE LAST console to come out with motion controllers!
PS2 had Eyetoy almost a decade ago!
Wii and PS3 has had motion controllers THIS ENTIRE GENERATION!

Who is playing catch-up now?
MICROSOFT.
You have your head wayyy too far up Microsoft's butthole to think this much.

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lloyd_wonder - 167 days 21 hours ago

NYC BALLIN'

Jada mess with that PlayStation

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MriownBOTH - 167 days 6 hours ago

natal is real....

this is a patent....even sonys dildo sticks were a prototype...and we wont see the dildo stick till 2016 ....and we will see this tech by 2023...great move sony..not

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apena89 - 167 days 5 hours ago

LOL Sony's Motion controllers were a REAL AND TANGIBLE TECH DEMO.
Natal still needs MUCH work. That video was all CGI and acting.
Are you really that blind?

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JohnnyBadfinger - 167 days 10 hours ago

yeah so you can use your mums dildo on something other than her. LOL

I WIN SUCK MY LEFT LEG!!!

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vega75 - 167 days 7 hours ago

i think thats the reason why sony is doing a patent on this. because natal could scan objects and use it in games. look at the E3 vid. where the kid scanned the skateboard and played tony hawk. sony is doing it to try to stop natal from being used to it full potental.

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delumine - 167 days ago

you can wave your d!ck in front of the Natal using it as wand in new fable game or a chainsaw in gears 3

thats super for you isn't it ? you are way more precise with d!ck in your hand then with real tennis racket or baseball bat

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AngryTypingGuy - 166 days 14 hours ago

I'll save my d!ck waving for when I'm in front of your mom, you f@ggot.

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delumine - 166 days 12 hours ago

what a comeback, go suck your dad

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AngryTypingGuy - 166 days 7 hours ago

Yeah it was a good comeback if I do say so myself. Why are you so bitter anyway? Geek.

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AngryTypingGuy - 166 days 7 hours ago

There is definitely a possibility that the whole motion sensing thing can get blown out of proportion, hopefully it won't. Natal and other motion sensing peripherals have the potential to be excellent for gaming, as long as it's not the be-all-end-all. For MS and Sony to make it the be-all-end-all of their platforms would be abandoning their audience, in my opinion.

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