Yawn...

We also saw Natal on Jimmy Fallon where they were all wearing red jumpsuits and standing in a box presumably to avoid another "Bam there it is" moment. What that says to me is either A) Natal won't be coming out in 2010, or B) It will come out gimped.

After the Power glove, Uforce, etc. etc. people will be taking the impact of any add on with a grain of salt.

the voice reconition part was what people call an anology.  i'm judging natal on nothing but what we have been shown in natal demonstrations and it is buggy and laggy.

also, NJ5 pointed out that i missed the part where only 1 of 3 pages was posted.  that part was my bad.

I read the whole article -- here are my impressions/thoughts

1. It is not the most professional. Posters say "B**LS**T" not those trying to make a point (and most boards edit it out).

2. The author dismisses the lack of a release date. We are looking at least 12 months, maybe more (the Xbox Creative Director would not commit to a 2010 release when asked by Jimmy Fallon). That is a long time -- and another few million Xbox consoles -- away.

3. The author dismisses the "won't work on X" about Burnout by saying it was still in development. True, it is prototype. But does this portend to programming problems? And remember, this was add-on done by Microsoft, not a third party. (Remember, not all motion detecting on the Wii runs as well as first-party).

4. Microsoft has a history of "smoke and mirrors" and FUD. This makes people skeptical. Previous big innovations (Surface, BOB) have failed to catch on.

5. If Microsoft gets people to buy the Xbox now and then does not deliver a working system, it could be in legal trouble. This is not speculation -- this is a history lesson from Intellivision's Keyboard Component. http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=ConsoleMuseum.Detail&id=17

Mike from Morgantown

It's an early beta, there's no question. It's one thing to get hyped for a CGI trailer of some coming game, I realize. But the technology is there and impressive. You clearly weren't impressed, but I, and many (most it seems) others thing that Natal has demonstrated what it is capable of, and what it will bring.

How can we say that Natal has demonstrated what it will bring? All we've seen or heard about are a few very simplistic games, and Burnout with LESS controls than Mario Kart Wii (just steering and speed control).

It has some potential for sure, but it has shown very little so far.

Can anyone tell me how that voice recognition is light years ahead of technology and Microsoft still has a rather mediocre voice recognition on Windows.

Also, anyone that thinks this technology works like magic is obviously too old to be absolutely impress. It's like the people that are still impressed by CGI. The reason they are impress is that they were alive when those technologies seemed like magic and impossible. For those that grew up in the PS2 and Wii generation, I really don't think it's magic as they are used to that kind of technology.

Every single Natal thread brings out the haters in force.  Seriously, if you guys think its so lame or undeserving of any hype, why do you continue to talk about it so much?  Do you feel its your personal mission in life to counter any and all positive information that comes out about this thing you personally have never used?

Anyway, this was a decent read.  Adam attempted to counter a lot of the negativity with his OWN hands on experiences and insight, but its a fools errand.  The people that vehemently dislike Natal now will dislike it even if it cured cancer.  But Adam recognized its POTENTIAL, and that's where the gaming industry needs to grow.  The next gen having even more realistic graphics just won't cut it.  Its not enough.  The experience has to be enriched, expanded and refined.  Project Natal is one of the R&D concepts that reaches out to do that.

His comment about Miyamoto was very nice.  The man is in a very difficult position.  He can't really publicly talk up this product because of his prominent role with Nintendo, but Adam caught him at a vunerable moment.  And those are typically honest moments.  Miyamoto is such an excitable gaming mind that I can only imagine that he had a ton of ideas come to his head on what he could do with such a technology.  "Wii Music could've been this and that with that tech!" or something even more revolutionary.  I can't imagine the TRUE gaming minds in the industry not appreciating the ambition of this project.

Lastly, Adam must've read comments I've made elsewhere ( ), because this hit me while watching James Cameron talk about Avatar at the Ubi conference:

I will end by saying that the first person to figure out how to successfully combine Natal technology with one of the other hot prospects I checked out last week, 3D, could be on to something really quite remarkable.

And he is sooooooooo right.  Natal tech + 3-D tech will TRULY be a major step forward in gaming immersion.  Good God can you imagine the types of experiences we could have?  Only a fanboy wouldn't get excited about that.

The MS hate on this thread is really delicious. One good thing about NATAL is that it annoys a lot of fanboys.

Coincidentially the ps eye has 4 point microphone with voice recognition, the camera has facial recognition and headtracking. I don't get why so many people don't know this.

The microphone is clearly visible too :p