MS is a shame less company they have always do things like this for pc and now they are doing it in the console market, what a disgrace

 ==> this already happened last year when Wii was sold out.

I just hope Ninty has enought stock this year, I REALLY HOPE

If the rumor about the $199 360 with a motion controller is indeed true...
... it's bound to fail horribly.

This has already been said countless times, but here are the huge chasms to overcome before even hoping for this to be a success:
- it must be real. Of course, it's probably vaporware, a typical MS tactic
- it must be advertised. Lots of wishful thinkers (or shills or astroturfers) believe that you just have to dump the product on the market, and people will magically know about it. NO! The marketing for the Wii (and Wii Fit) had a big budget and started months before the console launch.
- games. There's just no way the vaporware has as many games taking advanatage of it as the Wiimote.
- controller form factor. Anything looking like a classic controller will just plainly fail. There are few controllers form factor that are accessible enough. With a classic controller with lots of buttons, you've lost the casual already.
- console form factor. This one is an instant killer. There's just no way casuals will put huge, ugly, NOISY consoles like the XB360 in their living room.
- OS and IHM. What's the point of trying to compete with the Wii, when you can't even control everything with motion sensing or pointer? I doubt the OS can even cope with it. The XB360 interface was slow already without a mouse-like pointer. And without an accessible IHM, you've lost the casual already.

- reliability... Enough said!
- ...

There are other points, but these are enough to make it fail completely if it even exists.
So, I wonder what's the point of this vaporware campaign. It just makes no sense at all, and is completely ineffective to scare the competition.

Good luck to MS for this bold move - If they get it right it will upstage the Wii and PS3 motion controls. Only problem is in the short term it will make a huge loss as the X360 costs alot to make and sells at a loss too.
The wii on the other hand is probably costs under $100 to make and sells at a large profit margin. So the only way MS can manage to make a dent in the Wii market is by making a huge loss.
The Wii will still continue to rake in the $$ they are so far ahead in user base and manufacturing volume nintendo will not even bother to respond.
Anyways i hope it will encourage sony to respond with better motion support since they are also making a loss on their consoles too.
Given the current economics you can be pretty sure this is as someone else noted a left over april fools joke. !

@ookaze: The idea? No, it makes perfect sense: "don't buy the competitor, wait until we have it". Maybe its targeted mostly for the current 360 owners.

Malstrom put my thoughts (what i've said many times before) into a better understandable form, but that's their strategy. When in PC software business, they are used to be the big guy who controls it all. When someone invents something that could compete M$, they announce they're working on it, which basically means "if you don't drop it, a cheap ripoff of it is the next Windows feature which kills your market" and who can compete that.
In the console business, M$ faced two other big guys as competition, which are hard to compete just with money. Sonys strength is its large number of different electronics and retail channel, which offer synergic advantages and Nintendos is its ability to innovate and make money. Both have advantages over M$.

But when we look at PC software, there's three products, that M$ haven't managed to kill, despite of trying: Google, Firefox and Realplayer. What is interesting, is that the three compete M$ in key areas around the internet, which could possibly make Windows nearly useless (in average PC users homes), only the hardware to run these programs is missing, aside from M$ dominated PC market.
Now, we have Sony and Nintendo from the hardware side.

I don't doubt it will happen but I don't think it will make much of an impact if it does happen.

Nope, I really really dont think so. I think the majority of the Wii's install base is genuinly intimidated by the XBOX and PS3. Theres really no reason to be, but the people I know that just own Wii's either got them for someone else in the family and have no interest in gaming or got it because it was "neat" for parties.

I doubt those same people will see the XBOX360 the same way. Meh, just my opinion though. Im sure I'll be flamed, I shall leave this thread and not return now.

They already ripped off the Mii system, Singstar, Buzz, and the eye toy so why the hell not?

Maybe they could just rename their console the WiiS3 and be done with it.

Anyone remember that joke about the guy trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean swimming? When he was half way done he got tired and decided to go back. So MS thinks motion controls are important now.

PS3 invented trivia games and kareoke?  News to me.

I also remember seeing an eye toy like device long before Sony.  I believe there was one on a game show actually.  Nick Arcade or something.  The final challenge was the same concept I believe.

I guess Sony did come up with trophies, now that is innovative.