Just my thoughts on the matter...

First, I am very interested in that kind of interactivity innovations. Head tracking, face recognition, motion tracking - great to see anybody trying new things. And I do believe that the Natal technology may work as well as advertised. As others have noted, time will tell which genres work well with buttonless control schemes and which don't.

But the Milo demo movie really upset me a bit. MS & Molyneux are making this software look like something it can't possibly be, to the point of faking, imo. All over the internet, you see gushing comments like "ZOMG11!! how do the do it?!? this is making my head explode! what will Milo do when I ask him to kiss my butt? LolOLOLZ". Well, Milo would probably tell you he hasn't done his homework. Or that he likes your blue shirt. Same result when you ask him "what's a bread?", "stop that british accent" or "play the drums".

Milo's voice in the vid was clearly prerecorded, not synthesized. So he's got a limited repertoire of phrases, just like every other software of that kind before. And unless voice regognition technology made a HUGE jump forward recently, I don't believe for a second that Milo could properly understand sentences he's never heard before. And let's not get started on the AI necessery for a semantic interpretation of a new sentence...

Normally there would be nothing wrong with a software like this. And the rest - face recognition, interactivity - may very well work. But I feel like MS is warming up the old promises of the "Virtual Reality / Artificial Inteligence / Cyberspace" age, buzzwords other designers stopped using for a good reason: Because technology is too far from actually delivering any of that.

I hope you know what I'm trying to say... it's an intriguing idea, and I don't mean to diss it. But that video... "Milo, I'm a bit nervous..." "Nervous? You?" They making it look like Milo understands random sentences (in british slang). That's a bit shady.

What do you think?

After Peter Molyneux over-achieved on the modest promises he made about Black & White and Project Ego (Fable) I'd think people would take his promises to the bank.

I thought the general consensous was he'd underdelivered on B&W, Fable, etc. and is notorious for it.

I don't think the demo was 'shady' but is was clearly scripted and the tech is cleary not fully flexible as implied just yet.

I was being sarcastic being that Peter Molyneux made insane promises and didn't even come close to delivering on them ... His highly intelligent AI that responds to training and becomes good or evil based on how you treat him became a Crusty-Doll that acted stupidly and had a good-evil switch on the back; and his promise of the greatest RPG of all time with a world that will change dramatically based on the decisions you make as a child became a good game where a couple of decisions you make as a child have some impact on the dialogue available from a couple of characters in the game.

In other words, take anything he promises and imagine it with the most disapointing delivery possible and you will (probably) get in the ball park of what he will deliver.

From the Kotaku article:

Molyneux had me wrap up the demo by approaching Milo again. He asked me to call Milo over by saying my own name and acting happy. Milo walked up to me and complimented me on my blue shirt (my shirt was indeed blue). Then he stood there, waiting for me to say things. There was a little awkwardness here. The Milo demo was partially being manipulated by a developer who was sitting nearby, and I couldn't tell if he was merely calibrating the game or how much he was pulling its strings. I said nice things to Milo and the virtual boy smiled. I said I was standing next to Peter Molyneux and he sort of sighed. The most charming moment was that blue-shirt moment. It felt like this virtual person made a connection with me.

So it recognized a color and smiled when he said nice things... with the help of a developer.