Finally a 360 fan who doesn't lost this sense of reality and who's not dreaming on not-ever-going-to-work Halo 4 using Natal. Congratulations !

Really good article/interview http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/technologybrierdudleysblog/2009296568_e3_new_info_on_microsofts_nata.html

Thats what game designers do.  They think of ideas for games and get engineers(aka, people like Johnny) to solve problems that arise when trying to achieve the goals.

I was hoping for something more accurate and better graphics than Wii. This is probably it. "Super Wii"

True, but with a tech-oriented company like Microsoft that process could easily have worked the other way. It wouldn't be the first tech company to make an impressive product on paper, which doesn't work that well in practice.

I'm skeptical about this, and I will remain so until they show more games using this.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/989/989269p1.html

Natal hands on. It works to him.

that pc world dude is a moron, he just doesnt like m$.

I didn't express myself well. I'm sure the technology is solid, and it can actually detect your body movements with reasonable accuracy (it certainly looked that way at the E3 demo, and the article you linked to supports that).

What I have doubts about is whether this is a good idea for practical game development. For example, you have to set up your room so that this camera can see your whole body. Apparently "Burnout Natal" needs that for acceleration. It's already a bit of a pain to move things around the room to play Wii Fit, but it's acceptable being an exercise game. But I certainly don't want to do that every time I play a game.

The other problem has already been repeated a lot of times, the lack of any buttons/analog sticks/triggers for movement control and other actions. Sure, developers will get creative and solve some of these problems, but there are going to be limits I think.

I certainly don't want to come off as bashing MS for this, especially since I had previously thought I'd be one of the first to buy a motion controller from MS. My instinct just tells me this is not going to work out that well.

M$ had better watch out...The EU will try to fine them for bundling this feature with the 360, and will try to force them to allow Sony's eye-toy to be allowed to integrate with the 360 instead...lol.

Regardless, great news, but I'm a bit shocked to see them talking about a Fall release, since some people on these very boards have been authoritively speaking about how NATAL was still a science project, while eye-spy...or whatever the heck is reality.

Though I'm sure it's been stated a number of times already, Natal would be an additional control scheme rather than an outright replacement of the controller.

Some games will never lend themselves to full-body tracking and I'd be shocked if (m)any core games actually tried to fully replace the controller with this.  The required buttons and options *seem* to preclude this. 

But, there are tons of games which would benefit from full-body tracking.  DDR comes to mind, as does Kart racing.  Also there'll probably be lots of small 'fun' things which use this, like playing catch with a friend on LIVE... stuff like that which can make the entire experience of using the console more accessible.