Devkits are just being distributed as of the conference. If it launches in less than a year, there won't be any 3rd party game support (Games that take less than a year to develop are almost always awful. Games using an entirely new interface and coding structure developed in less than a year are tragically so.)

If MS intended it to come out soon, they would have announced it. They're comfortable putting a date on Halo: Reach, which is coming out Christmas 2010. They don't even have a final name for Natal yet.

wow, what used to be considered a gimmick for the wii is now most wanted and a great boost for 360...how ironc

if i was an xbox gamer I would complain about an exerices video game, otherwise your wifes will be playing your consoles not you.

But then again men might end up going to the bar for some drinks more often instead.

Silly child, it is not most wanted, will not be a great boost for the 360, and is far more advanced than anything the Wii has put out to date.

You realize that motion detection technology doesn't follow a linear progression, right? Natal isn't more "advanced" than the Wiimote+, it's just different.

I just don't believe that. MS wouldn't choose not to inform the public at the world's biggest games show that they were releasing their megaton announcement in the near future. The rhetorical impact of saying "Yeah, the Natal does all this amazing stuff, and it's going to be in your home by May of next year" is too great.

If they're releasing it by this time next year, they are terrible businessmen. All the hype they're building up would be multiplied tenfold with a solid release date.

True, true. I do expect something along the lines of Wii Fit to show up quickly...

But you'll understand if I'm not as optimistic as you are about its potential popularity. Nintendo kind of conquered that "niche".

Silly child? Way to be condescending. I don't take insults lightly but I'll let this one slide because I assume you mistake my point.

In no way do I believe natal would revolutionize anything simply because it's a gimmick that isn't standard with the console and wasn't included in the consoles identity from day 1. Thus, I think the xbox heads are over-estimating it's reception and the idea of it being a "great boost" for the 360 is theirs not mine. I just presented my opinion somewhat sarcastically.

I think it's more that all the middle aged housewives already has the wii set up on the living room TV to play Wii Sports and were comfortable with operating it, so that when Wii Fit came out, they were comfortable expanding the experience. They don't have a 360, or if they do it's hooked up to a TV in their son's room or their husbands gameroom, and they aren't comfortable playing it. And they're certainly not going to pay 200 dollars for a 360, plus at least 50 dollars (or possibly as many as 200 more dollars) for a Natal, and then 50 more dollars for a game (Unless that game is Wii Sports. That game makes people crazy)