http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/email-project-natal-wheres-the-business-plan/

There is no business plan because Natal will never become a product. It is that simple.


Natal will be delayed and delayed, yet said to be in ‘deep development’. There will even be developers trotted out to say, “This is the best thing since sliced bread!” every now and then. Once Microsoft is unable to delay Natal anymore, it will try to make it ‘disappear’ or release it quietly with most of its features stripped away.

I’m going to refer to Natal as the Microsoft Phantom for now on since it will end up having far more in common with the Phantom, that was supposed to revolutionize gaming but only ended up being a stunt.

microsoft bought a company. that specialized in cameras for this. i don't see them scrapping it.

they put their asses on the line by putting it in E3, it is ridiculous to think that they won't release it.

It's pretty funny seeing how threatened Nintendo fans are by this.

Actually it makes sense that it wont be released, people are saying $200 for the camera, that won't have any market penetration at that price, by the time it gets to a price cheap nough to hit the market, it'll be the next generation.

It will see release. like Gears 3. on Nextbox.

and then they'll release the same thing for the next console. Doesn't mean it was never released. There have been tons of games that were delayed to later consoles or switched consoles all over the place, doesn't mean they never released just because they changed platforms. As long as it's the same system and called Natal then it's the same thing.

Not true at all. There are tons of games and hardware that are displayed at E3 that never see the light of day.

Wrong... Can't quite remember the link to it, but right now using a certain kind of alloy chip for the camera costs around $60. The article stated that in all likelihood MS will wait at least until next year for the creation of the CMOS chipset for the camera which should place their manufacturing value around $15.

Don't ask for a link, but it was posted on this site. Search it out if you want.

In big ass conferences for the whole world to see?  I can't remember any of the hardware companies spending so much time in their E3 conference for something and then never release it.