Microsoft's Project Natal Is Hot. Like Pong Hot

Around 1976, when I was a very young lad, I somehow convinced my parents to spring for a home version of the most cutting edge consumer video game available at the time ¿  Pong. I fondly remember sitting in the living room and playing that game for tens of hours. My parents actually thought it was fun, too. And so did the neighbors, who all stopped by to try it out. Pong was a genuinely new and totally fun social thing. And it sure beat playing Monopoly. Video games have evolved, but I've never quite had that Pong moment again. Until yesterday, that is, when I visited Microsoft and had a chance to try out Project Natal, an add-on device for Xbox that lets users control games by simply moving their body. Just like real life.I assumed Natal would be a lot like the Wii, which uses motion sensors in handheld devices to control gameplay. But the experience is totally different. Natal allows for extremely nuanced movements, even determining via algorithms what you are doing with body parts the camera can't see (like when your hands go behind your back). And for anyone who's accidentally and painfully hit a wall or a window playing a strenuous game of Wii Tennis: Natal avoids this problem by keeping you in a zone where your movements are tracked. You just naturally gravitate to the center of the room where your movements get picked up. The game I and others were playing was called Ricochet. You see the back of your blue avatar on the screen (similar to first person shooters). You hit red balls against a group of targets in front of a wall. You can hit the balls, which bounce back towards you after hitting the wall, with your hands or any other body part. Headers, kicks, knees, whatever. You get points for speed and accuracy. You can see a video of Ricochet here.Ricochet is a lot like Pong actually. Not much to it.But it was so damn fun.After I played a game and others took their turn I looked around. Everyone was smiling, and laughing, just like the neighbors back in 1976 while watching us play Pong. And the Microsoft employees were carefully watching us smiling. They looked like they'd seen that reaction before. Forbes Quentin Hardy, sitting next to me, drew the analogy to Pong (and then wrote about it). I wholeheartedly agree. There's something very special about Natal that goes way beyond what Nintendo did with the Wii. I can't wait to get my hands on one later this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030300394.html

All the positive articles of natal in google news is just getting me more and more hyped about Natal.

No to sound like a broken record but there's no doubt about it. Natal has got huge potential. Only time will.

I'm excited for Natal, too, but sometimes Microsoft (read Windows, RROD, etc) has a way of putting out a product before a complete debugging, raising the potential of this being a major flop! I'm not a fanboy either way, but I just have lost faith in some MS products, and fear the support won't be there until all of the bugs are worked out!

Isn't that the case of every console manufacturer this generation?

Sony -> PSN/OS updates to bring it to the level it ought to have been at the start.

Microsoft -> Consoles offing themselves soon after launch.

Nintendo -> Motion + because the Wiimote wasn't quite there at the start.

True. A most of the articles of natal have been fairly positive so far.

And its rare you get an article like this one about a product. Like I said, it just makes people excited and just shows how huge the potential is for natal. The one thing about natal is that it is very very different and rare (in good way) compared to M$ other products, which makes it all the more curious and exciting.

But like I said again, only time will tell.

I honestly believe that articles like this are doing Natal more harm than good. I'm sure Natal will be great fun, but comparing it to the original revolution in video gaming itself? The hype that is being droped onto Natal is becoming so much that no matter how good it is, it will most likely still leave many people dissappointed because they were expecting the next Pong.

There's no way these articles are doing harm. In fact it's just making it more exciting. If there are a number of positive articles on natal, than chances are it will be at least decent. And remember these articles are from the neutral point of view.

No one is expecting Natal to be like pong. He said the experience of it was just like that of the time he first played pong, which makes it even more intruiging.

Remember, the target audience, the neutral/casual gamer will have little knowledge or information on natal compared to us gamers. These articles itself will do more good than harm to the general public of non gamers.

Funny thing is I saw a number of articles like this about the Wii before it came out. Sure to us hardcore gamers it was a dissapointment, and articles such a these probably didn't help out cause, but to the genrall public and casual audience the Wii was revolutionary and because of this the Wii maintains it's number one spot ahead of the 360 and ps3, despite having less games and as well as less AAA games.

There's no doubt that Natal has a big chance to grab the publics attention in a positive way, which may lead to decent sales at least

Good point Seihyouken.
If a product is declared as the second coming and not necessarly by the products developer it can have too high expectations placed upon it that it was never intended to reach.

While natal really isn't exciting me for gaming. I don't want to have to jump about to play games all the time, games like that have their place, but its limited.

I've just thought of a potential of this system that does excite me.

Could it succesfully analyse movements and motion to do with sporting and maybe musical activities. Could I use it to improve my golf swing, my lacrosse shots, my football kicks or baseball swings?

In theory if it maps body movement it could be a massive tool to analyse your posture and motion and fix it. I'd love to be able to stand in my front room and practise on the vitrual driving range learning skills I could take out onto the course. I'd love to find out where my Lacrosse shooting posture is going wrong and where I can improve, then take it out into physical training and games. Can Natal do this? If so I'm sold.

I know what you mean but i dont agree!

i love having a game on the wii.... it IS fun and very different to the xbox exsperence. 

Im REALLY looking forward to having a bit of that crazy fun on my 360 with fantastic online and stunning graphics.

No controler = WIN 

even if i ONLY use it to scrole through my dashboard i will probably wet myself!!!!