Is Natal the 360s last hope?

[ArnoldRimmer]

The thread's title is a little provocative, but yes, I pretty much think so.

Ever since the PS3s price cut, the PS3 was significantly ahead of the 360 in terms of hardware sales. (Well, except for one week in November when Microsoft started banning more than a million 360 consoles.)

I see only two events that could change things:
- Price cuts
- Interesting new hardware

I'm sure Microsoft will reduce 360 prices once again this year, but I doubt even that will strengthen 360 hardware sales that much. The 360 is already the cheapest of the three consoles, another price alone will not attract many new customers. And Sony could do price cuts on the PS3 as well, and PS3 price cuts would probably boost PS3 sales more than 360 price cuts would boost 360 sales.

So without interesting new hardware like Natal, I think the 360 would be doomed. But I think Natal is really going to change things. Natal is targeting for a target audience for which the 360 was completely uninteresting so far: casual gamers. Bundle a 360 with a Natal cam and a mini-game collection and sell the whole bundle for 199, and Microsoft might actually be able to get millions of new customers - especially those who are generally interested in a Wii but would really prefer a console with HD graphics.