ps, The Natal preview video looks really cool, but have to say.... it WAY WAY too slow. Reaction time looks bad. The Arc looks like some sort of female sex toy but has an amazing real time reaction time. I have no idea which one will be more popular.

IMO it is going to cost over 100$... one camera can track what? 4 people? they going to charge for that... you are buying one camera over 4 controllers... yes, its hard on people who plays alone but its going to be very cheap to "party people"...

Does not really matter for me, i wont be buying, but wow that is expensive, I don't think that is the case, why would MS make Natal as expensive as there console, just does not make sense to me, but I guess I could be wrong.

The camera doesn't track anything. The camera doesn't even process anything since they removed the co-processor from the hardware design.

The software is what interprets data being streamed by the camera as individual players shaped and moving like human beings.

The camera itself is nothing more than a pair of relatively low res phone type cameras, an IR emitter for low light conditions and a mic array. It's not an expensive piece of equipment.

As for the idea of four people jumping around and swinging their arms at once while playing Natal; yeah that's a good formula for hilarious injuries to happen. At best, most of the games are going to be for two players unless they're really low key games that have people sitting on the floor or games with only subtle movements involved. Four player dodgeball for example, is probably out.

Why is the Natal unit so big? The unit we have seen seems huge, albeit that it is not necessarily the official natal unit, but still, what does the Natal unit have in it that makes is so big? If it only has 3 cameras and a few microphones than it would not have to be so wide.

Just something that I have been wondering about. As far as price, it probably will be less than $100. Although it could be more. It seems much more high tech than any other add on that has been released so far for any console.

maybe it's wide for the sake of camera position and the actual unit itself is hollow?

Other than that, maybe that makeup was from when it still had a processor inside. Maybe it's a lot thinner now?

natal won't cost more than 100USD.

I have to agree with patcher... will be bundled and sold separate will be 50-100USD

I'm guessing the sample design/prototype is shaped the way it is to roughly position the stereoscopic cameras in the approximate position of a pair of human eyes. Although on most people, that's only about two inches from pupil to pupil.

Other than that, the shape of the housing may also be to accommodate the proper positioning for the multi mic array set up (although the PS3 Eye has a 4 mic array in a fairly compact package).

Could possibly even be to accommodate the positioning of the IR emitter array (fancy words for a string of IR LEDs like the Nintendo Wii sensor bar).