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Microsoft's Project Natal lag calculated to be a tenth of a second
Eager for a bit more Project Natal news now that Jonathan Ross let slip what may or may not be a launch date? Then you're in luck, as MTV's Multiplayer blog has taken advantage of a recent Natal demo session to peg down exactly how much lag we can expect from the motion-sensing system (assuming it's not fine-tuned any further, that is). After timing some 40 movements with a stopwatch, the site found that "life-to-screen" transitions ranged from 0.08 seconds to 0.12 seconds, or about a tenth of a second on average. That's obviously a bit slower than the response of an old fashioned controller (or even a Wiimote, for that matter), and is just enough to be noticeable when you're playing. Of course, it's the games that will ultimately matter the most, and we still haven't seen much more news on that front.
Real-life WoW-style name tags
Now this is the sort of thing YouTube was made for. Aram Bartholl, a German artist "famous for his exploration of the relationship between the digital and physical world," did a WoW-inspired project at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, CA yesterday afternoon. It looks like it was a repetition of the project in the video above, which took place in Germany Belgium (sorry!) in 2008. Essentially, he has participants construct big floaty name tags, like the names that show up over your characters' heads. The people then walk around the city with the tags floating over them, held by additional participants. The overall effect is pretty cool. If anyone was in Laguna yesterday, I want pictures and/or video, please.
Harmonix quits the band, starts up new project
As a follow-up to our speculative post regarding the future of Guitar Hero development, Harmonix has cleared up the whole mess in an interview with Gamasutra. We'll hit you with the good news first: Harmonix is in fact working on a brand-new music title. The (possibly) bad news being that they will not be involved with Guitar Hero III, leaving that title in the hands of, presumably, Neversoft.Regarding the new project, Harmonix producer Daniel Sussman took time away from reading the blogs of his favorite Laguna Beach cast members to say it's "a bigger and more ambitious endeavor than we felt we could pursue within the bounds of the Guitar Hero franchise." Though he could have just been talking about the new Fall Out Boy album (they're still hot with the kids, right?), we're excited all the same for whatever the future may hold for the MTV-owned developer.
