That's just the thing, looking at their efforts on the Wii makes me wonder. 3rd party support will, as you said, get it some traction, but I don't feel that alone will suffice to carry new tech like Natal all the way through.

I think the multimedia capabilities of the device shown at E3 by Microsoft can really be a strong selling point along with some ambitious first party titles.

Red Faction Guerrilla
Company of Heroes
Dawn of War
Dawn of War II
Darksiders
UFC Undisputed
SmackDown vs. RAW
De Blob
Saints Row
Saints Row 2
STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl
Metro 2033
Titan Quest

All very good games

I'd like to see something pushing Natal but THQ angle is somewhat surprising me.

I was thinking maybe Ubisoft based on their relative success with party games/let's dance on Wii might produce something interesting but I never thought THQ might.

I'll wait and see and give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment that they have come up with something interesting.

Seconded.

theres a lot of wii games that still cant use the wii very well. even less that i think use the wii very well.
things with move shouldnt be all that hard, since its so similar to the wiimote. companies should be able to port some of their wii products over with little difficulty.

natal doesnt have an input device like the others, so there will obviously be some time before there is a firm grasp of the sorts of things that work well with the product. conceptually, it seems to have brought a lot of excitement and ideas forward from devs. but whether they can translate that into enjoyable games...

Problem is 3rd parties dont either 1. See Wii as a new way to play, or 2. create limited games due to a controller.

'No' controller asks a great deal of innovation in game design. A true step forward. If M$ are gushing at the prospect of this game, I trust them. No way in hell M4 would put a game centre stage if it wasn't of Gears or Halo quality.

I respect that, but I'm still skeptical about this whole thing. But if they can do it, kudos to them.

True, but none of those games took advantage of a new paradigm in controls.  That's why people have very little faith in 3rd parties.

i wonder if its a new IP altogether or just redesigning a current franchise to work for natal. I would love to see a UFC or WWE wrestling game using Natal- if done well these could definitely be seen as system selling apps

disadvantages of natal::

-will be expensive
-will have expensive development costs, the code written for natal will be quite different than button-controlled games
-natal games wont bring in nearly as much, if PSN games are any indication, the offerings by natal wont be that AWESOME as they will mostly be downloads
-MS doesn't have a casual userbase
-lag
-limit of kinds of games that would be ideal for natal, like say a yoga game or something