So I just watched the video of Natal for the first time and I'm a little surprised at people being so excited about this without first thinking it through. The first thought that popped into my head was "air guitar". The girl is sitting there driving with no steering wheel in her hand. Dad changes her tire with no air gun in his hand. The people ring in on the game show with no buzzer in their hand. Basically they're a mime sitting in front of their TV. Activities like that where you'd have something in your hand in real life make sense to actually HAVE something in your hand while you play. Kicking the soccer ball was neat until I realized that to aim a soccer kick, you need to kick at a certain place on the ball. Without an actual ball to aim your foot at, how do you know where you're kicking? The device makes more sense for activities like the fighting segment where the kid is doing karate and looked decent for the navigation through the interface like when they were choosing a movie. But seriously, how many of you are going to be trying on dresses via this thing with your BFF?
Once the Wii had been out for awhile, some people felt the novelty of the controls wore off. I kinda agree although I still enjoy my Wii very much. I can see people absolutely going wild for this thing when it comes out as they try out some new games for it and every game in their library that's been patched to it for backwards compatibility. Soon they'll realize that they prefer a controller for their old games since that's how they were originally designed (think about some of the Wii games that you'd rather play with a classic controller or the Wii-mote on its side) and the new games, while highly interactive, will feel shallow without the use of any tactile feedback or the use of buttons for more complex control over what you're doing. The motions themselves only get you so much control over what you're doing in the game. You need buttons. Maybe they'll have games where you have the controller in your hand and use Natal at the same time. IMO, for many people the gaming part of it will fall by the wayside except for at parties and all that will be left is using the interface to navigate. If this ever sees the light of day and isn't vaporware as some suggest, I suspect a lot of people will quickly regret their purchase. Especially if it is as expensive as some suggest. If you buy it the day it comes out, I sincerely hope you enjoy it. I think we're all better off waiting until after it's been out awhile and seeing if it's going to provide us the experience we were expecting. I have a feeling once I finally get a 360 (hopefully by the end of the year), I won't be giving this a second glance.
P.S. I don't think Sony's motion controls are all that big a deal either.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-project-natal/50013
Keep this in mind when reading what I type...
I've been gaming longer than many of you have been alive.
