The thing i don't understand is how they can have no idea what dev's are working on for NATAL you would think they would. They don't have to tell us if it's a big secret but if anything was in developement they could have said dev's are working on some really cool idea's that will be new to gamers or something. I haven't seen anything interesting so far from natal. it's always the ball game and the menu upgrade and we have voice recognition that no one has had a chance to play with that i have heard of so far. and Milo doesnt count since we know it was scripted.

Your right! Im gonna start hyping the Arc!

Basically it's a matter of timing. Every one wants to know what Natal will offer us, secrecy keeps the hype going so there is no need to talk about it as of yet.

And when time comes, releasing plenty of info simultaneously will give NATAL a fantastic media coverage, just ahead of people purchasing.

If there is at least two great games for NATAL it will dominate this XMAS sales and turn this gen upside down.

This thing is going to flop hard. Obviously the main genres where this could do well is exercise and casual games. Unfortunately, the Wii already owns these genres. Most of the people that would buy it for these types of games likely already own a Wii. It's doubtful these people would buy a second console, especially if it is more expensive than the Wii.

You cannot be serious. I think most of us are just confused because theres nothing to suggest all these reviews are actually right, yet.

I might be wrong but, did Nintendo do much promotion of the Wiimote prior to the Wii Sports showing? Might be a way to draw parallels.

Natal is an interesting and novel approach. I think its got three key markets.

1. Interface for computer/media playback.

2. Game interface.

3. Communications interface.

It doesn't need to be great at all things for every person and it can be good for more than one market area at the same time, i.e. games + communications or media or all three.

Someone who wants it for an interface/webcam/communicator on the PC may find its a pretty good webcam with an excellent mic and great night vision capabilities.

Someone who buys it for the Xbox 360 may easily use it for movie/music playback as well as getting rid of a headset because the array mic is pretty good for noise cancelation and may never even play a game with it. Netflix is as important as any one game on the Xbox 360, so the utility of this device doesn't begin and end with games.

This interface isn't just going to be proving itself as a games interface its going to be proving itself as a concept for a human interface. The real potential of this device is in overlaying a haptic style (mass effect for example) interface into the field of view of a person using either 3D glasses or a display mounted to the inside of glasses. The present potential is limited to interaction based off of a 2D screen.

The best part of this technology is that it captures the parts of the market which the Wii hasn't been able to tap and even if the Wii gets replaced with a significantly faster model it still probably won't tap into the potential markets for Natal. So whilst Sony is trying to compete with the hellishly good Nintendo on their home turf, Microsoft has so many potential uses for this technology and so many partners they can tap into. Its really between Microsoft and the market here because theres nothing limiting the potential of Natal aside from themselves.

It may very well flop but not because of the reason you gave.  It might flop because it doesn't get proper software support but not because people will refuse to buy it.  Also the 360 is cheaper than the Wii as everyone keeps saying on here....