Umm, where did I mention games? I was pointing out that any kind of development (games or otherwise) would need to be subsidized by M$ or this thing will never even get off the ground.
Sorry I misunderstood you. In any case talking about something like this is probably more important than pretty much any individual game. This is about how you play and how you interact with all games.
First, everyone who knows anything about interaction technology already knows this is where its going. In the "future" everything will be interactive. Heck in 5-10 years you'll wear be able to see an overlay whenever you want detailing stuff about everything you see. The fact is SONY and alot of other companies already know this and have had research delving into this for years.
Second, thats great for them, but why should I care? This is about gaming, not educational tools for 1-4 year olds. The huge talk going on right now about the different motion control schemes isn't going to care about this.
Its not just about 1-4 year olds. Its a whole age group from about 5 till about 12-13 who could take advantage of the technology. Furthermore since this site deals with 'games' like Wii Fit all the time, its not even about games all the time anymore. Consoles are evolving beyond simple gaming devices. I haven't seen anything else really from other companies and their interface technologies, so forgive me for latching on to the one technology I know about.
You make some very interesting points. Do you think they will try to market these educational aspects through the 360 or are you expecting them to detach the hardware from the 360? It would take those kids shows where they ask you to point to things on screen or yell out answers to questions, aka Blues Clues and such, and actually allow them to interact with it. Very nice ideas there.
I agree the core gaming possibilities on this are a little slim it seems. I can think of several ideas, but none of which would really be anything more than a couple hours of fun every now and then.
I am really intrigued by the idea of controlling interfaces with this thing though. Scrolling through menus and such with just my hand waving in the air is interesting. That would need to pervade more than the 360 though as well. Get the hardware and software to work with more than the 360 would be needed to really get this thing to take off. Which is probably where MS is going with this.
Its a hard one to answer. Probably we'll see some sort of hydra like approach tackling different segements of the market at the same time. I can definately see them pushing to make the Xbox 360/Natal platform the standardised interface for the new interactive TVs. I've even seen a video with the new games on demand page loaded up running straight through a TV so perhaps that was an earlier model of this? (It was a BBC Click show with a gesture interface TV @ CES) Thats probably the smartest move since the TV manufacturers are desperate to differentiate themselves so they will likely have a demand and a budget for these types of interfaces for their TVs. If that happens then essentially it could make it the default interface solution here, which is probably what they are going for. Its pretty interesting that the Sky/Netflix deals are going on at the same time, I can see some real synergy happening with all three in different parts of the world.
Tease.
