| thismeintiel said: @ Squilliam I don't see how you can just dismiss the inspiration MS most likely took from the Eye Toy and give it the Wii (even though Natal is mostly a camera and not a bar of infrared sensors), just because you deem Eye Toy a failure. Especially since Eye Toy was a success, given that is was an accessory not needed to play the vast majority of games. It was released in mid-late 2003 in EU and NA, 3 years before the PS3's release. In Japan it was released early 2004, just over 2 years before the PS3 was set to release. In in that time it went on to sell over 10.5 mil units. Unfortunately, as the PS3's launch grew nearer, the software support for it dried up. However, 10.5 mil sold would have to be a success in most people's books, especially since some analysts think that Natal and Move will sell around the same or less. To put it in perspective, the Gamecube and X-box were only able to sell around twice that amount of units for each of their consoles in their entire lifetime. |
Because quite simply the Natal interface has more commonality with the Wiimote than it does the Eyetoy. The Wiimote device at principle runs off a IR camera and an IR source, the Natal interface does the same. The only difference is that the IR source and camera are on the one device. Hence the fact that Natal bears a closer resemblence to the Wiimote and its existance as an interface has more to do with the success of the Wiimote than any inspiration from the lack of relative success the Eyetoy had. Since the main part of the interface doesn't even use the same spectrum of light as the Eyetoy its pretty foolish to draw a connection.
Oh and Microsoft has been working on new interfaces since before the mid 90s. Natal is probably the first real product to come out of a ton of research and development. Had the eyetoy not existed, the inordinant about of money spent on R+D by Microsoft on new interface technologies would have been spent. Arguably they had the precursers to Natal long before Sony even released the Eyetoy.
Tease.
