If the price is 100 or less it will sell, over that it's a fail unless they have something shown for natal at e3 that will have people foaming at the mouth.

i have to agree, no way i would pay more than 100 bucks for an upgraded eyetoy

Should consoles become next gen living room PC's, MS' policy about peripherals and online will kill all its chances. Not even Apple is so greedy.

I am pretty sure it debuts at the exact same price in every territory as Wii Fit.

a 360 Arcade + Natal = same price as Wii + Wii Fit.


To those who argue about the high price of accessories on the 360. Is it really any different then the high priced accessories for all consoles for the past 15 years. Why were memory cards, rumble paks, DVD remotes, AV cables, etc... all expensive.

Nobody except producers was happy of the past situation. While some controllers like WiiMote are quite complex and rich of patents, so you couldn't have a 3rd party exact replica, at most alternative 3rd party controllers, for memory cards, hard disks and cables, overpriced proprietary solutions are things of the past that offer advantages to nobody else than producers and that people are glad to bury and forget with no regret. Console market was the only one remaining to keep alive that fossil for those devices and peripherals, but PS3 disrupted it using standard components.

I don't know what Natal costs to produce, but I do know it needs to be pretty affordable unless MS just wants to target early adopters and build for their next console.

If it's too expensive (and I guess MS cutting the CPU implies it was too expensive in terms of the original build) then it could really struggle to take off.

I guess MS might need to consider selling at cost or even a loss if they want to secure high demand.

They'll have to try to keep their expectations... reasonable.

Adding a new feauture so late, both MS and Sony can hope it will help support sales and boost them a little bit, but they can't pretend to find themselves with two new Wii's in their hands, they arrive last to the party, with a "me too" aura at least partially ruining any coolness, and being too ambitious would only make them burn money, nevertheless starting experiencing now on the market too instead of waiting for the next gen is the right thing to do to fill at least part of the gap separing them from Nintendo and to prevent it from widening (and they'll have also to study each one something new and original, as Ninty will certainly do it for next gen).

That's how I see it.

At lauch, I see four groups Natal/Arc can sell to:

1 - existing owners as a seperate peripheral.  Both MS and Sony should be able to see some okay sales here if the games & hook is strong enough.  MS has the bigger install base but Sony already has EyeToy customers and possibly (but only possibly) a slightly better existing demographic to appeal to with LBP, etc.  Pretty much even chances I'd say for MS/Sony to do okay.  Of course, this does zero to advance their console install base but does help the new peripherals gain and audience.

2 - existing Wii owners.  Well, I see this as a dead end, and a worrying one for MS/Sony.  If you have a Wii and are fine with it why would you buy a 360/PS3 to get their motion controls?  Natal or Arc would have to have games and a hook that way eclipsed the Wii to even snag a fraction of the Wii only install base IMHO, and I just don't see either achieving that.  The problem is that the Wii already has the largest install base for the types of games that use motion controls.

3 - people who don't have a 360/PS3/Wii but who decide Natal / Arc is the thing for them rather than the Wii.  This seems a tough sell for MS/Sony as well.  As with 2) above they'd need games, marketing and a hook to divert a reasonable (sorry!) percentage of the Wii's current weekly demand away from the Wii to them instead.  This seems a tall order to me currently.

4 - force Natal/Arc on new 360/PS3 owners.  This, next to 1) above, is the most likely option, but potentially the most costly/risky for both MS/Sony.  Put Natal/Arc in the box and force every new 360/PS3 owner to take it.  Both the 360 and PS3 are selling well each week and every one of those could have a controller included.  The issue is do they make it mandatory or a special bundle?  If a special bundle then we'll see the real demand but it allows for people who really only want a 360/PS3 on the same terms as today to bypass Natal / Arc and reduce their acceptance in the market.

If they make it all consoles have the motion controls then they will either need to absorb the cost to keep prices the same or raise the price of the PS3/360 to include the new motion controls (I'm assuming here for example that the 360 would sell exactly as today for controllers, etc plus Natal, and the same for the PS3 which would ship with a Dualshock plus EyeToy plus Wand (Arc, whatever).

To get the most marketshare right away I believe both MS/Sony would need to make the new controllers mandatory and try to keep the price point close to where it is now as well as offer the devices at a fairly low cost to existing owners.  Even then, unless the new devices produce an actual boost to underlying demand, the consoles will simply sell the same as they do now except they'll include some additional control devices.

I guess we'll see soon enough, but releasing this late when a competitor arguably already 'owns' the core demographic you're tyring to reach is a very tall order in terms of achieving large sales success.

Well, just hope that it isn't true because Microsoft really needs to turn the tides with this one.

If they cut a CPU to cut costs recently as annouced I'd say it's very likely MS have little room to play between making a profit and making a loss with Natal.  The loss of the CPU to me implies they want to launch with the lowest possible price but aren't willing to eat a lot of cost at this point.  I would therefore expect Natal to sell initiall around cost or at a slight loss.  I doubt they will see many profits unless they cut the CPU to allow for a small amount of profit (which is possible, too).

I know they charge a lot for other peripherals, but they can't afford that route with Natal I think.  If it doesn't take of well then not only are they going to loose a lot of face after the hype, but they allow the Wii to continue unchallenged and give Sony a chance to gain more traction with their motion controls than MS.

Natal I'm sure will be as cheap as they can make it without incurring heavy losses selling it.