Well, I will give it to Microsoft, it does look really cool. But the things they show, games where you flail your arms and paint pictures, yea it looks awesome for about,............ 10 minutes. Flailing my arms and painting would be fun at first but it's not something i would do with my friends time and time again. But Milo on the other hand, looks pretty neat but, that conversation seems scripted to me. I think this product has A LOT of potential but from what i have seen so far, at least from the LIVE ONSTAGE demos, it's going to have to do more.

I do congratulate microsoft on what they have done so far. It definately looks really cool but I am not yet convinced that it is a worthwhile investment.

If microsoft wants to capture the casual crowd, it's going to have to take more games, and not simple art activities. That game where you are hitting a bunch balls doesn't seem like you have a lot of control..........

I tend to agree with the OP on this one.
I will take a wait and see approach.

What you fail to acknowledge is the fact that games require multiple specific inputs. Take a FPS for example:

-Are you going to jump everytime you want the character to jump?

-Make a gun with your fingers and yell "bang" everytime you want to shoot?

-How exactly would you change weapons on the fly?

-Climb a ladder?

-Crawl through a tunnel?

You have to take into consideration the market that the 360 revolves around, the core, FPS-oriented gamer. This is the market that would need to be addressed, as the casual market has been blocked off by the Wii and the Ubi-Cam that was announced last night. The cameras work similarly for the types of games that the developers seem to have in mind, minus for audio input on the Natal system.

So, NATAL isn't going to attract a new userbase/steal thunder from the Wii, but give the current 360 userbase a new input method. The questions above form one great question - can it work for this userbase that complains that the Wii isn't for them because they would have to move around?

It's probably going to be a bit like the Wiimote. Fans will get excited about it but the real thing won't be able to do nearly as much as they imagined. At least not at first. But without bundling from launch it won't get the install base and thus won't get the third party support. I don't see this tech really working all that well for at least another five years anyway.

I found Malstrom's article on the subject to be quite interesting. The underperformance and such.

I have to disagree with the OP.

Clearly, him being from Austria prevents him from seeing the magnitude of change that is happening with Natal. I mean, now people can flail their arms AND feet (unlike the wii with flailing only arms).

when I saw milo all I thought of was this video. which is suppose to be sown at E3.

Project Milo has made me wonder about how they're going to make this character be able to have conversations and such.

Could it be an advanced 'smarterchild' with text-to-speech technology that sounds natural?

Are videogames Natals primary target? It looks as a way to browse the various XBL services.

I think that Microsoft is going to unveil an online shopping service soon (you can try clothes via Natal). Then XBOX would be the perfect entertainment machine for the living room. You can see movies, listen to music and communicate with friends. And you don’t even need a controller or a remote. You can control it with voice orders and body gestures. It looks like the future TV. Facebook, Twitter and satellite TV channels fit perfectly.

That’s why XBOX doesn’t offer a web browser. Microsoft wants to control the online services they offer. You can’t browse the video streaming service of your choice. You have to use the XBL service. You can’t visit Amazon from your XBOX. You will have to use Microsoft online shopping service.

Well we'll find out just how Milo runs when MS do their promised "behind closed doors" previewing with the media.

That'll decide whether it's real or not (in terms of interactivity).

It appears to be interesting technology. But it also appears it may not be of much interest to those who are interested in technology and may be too costly to those who would like the controller-free video gaming experience.

Mike from Morgantown