I can agree with the 360 part. Whether they succeed in there goal or not is to be determined. However I do not agree with the assumption of Sony vs Wii. Porting between the two technologys seems unlikely at this stage. Not to mention that M+ is more than just trying to please the core and continue taking markets from their competitors.

You're judging Natal based off compressed videos with dropped frames and using that to base your opinion on what is essentially an engineering sample? It doesn't make sense, and many of the people who used it who are more sensitive than the general population to these things have had little to no issue? 1/4 of a second is something that anyone would note, especially a games journalist.

Natal can do anything the current Wiimote can do. Point, gesture, and all that remains are the A and B buttons. If the Wiimote can do something, Natal can do it too. If the Wiimote cannot do something then any comparison is moot. I didn't make any assumptions based off big sweeping motions of the Wiimote or about the learning curve. I took it as it was, a successful interface system. But a successful system which was getting its first real challenge on two fronts.

I am not 'many people' so why bring up a counter point to arguments made by people not worth answering? The Wiimote is facing two distinct competitors, so now its possible to bring the Wii back into a lot of the arguments because so much of what the Wii is now is directly competing with the current and future directions of Microsoft and Sony. Personally I have the highest respect for many people who have been forced to defend the Wii over the years. So to potentially engage them in debate is something that I look forward to with all due respect.

"While this was a thought I've had earlier, just today I noticed an article on how the developer that provides the library for motion control on the Wii has already released a version for the PS3's controller, which includes the ability to simply 'record' a gesture that can then be recognised by the library and connected to a function. This means that developers who've invested time into developing a game for the Wii and particularly WiiMotePlus can very, very easily also release this for the Playstation (not to mention vice versa of course, but with WiiMotionPlus out now ... ). "

This is the closest I could find to the original article, it came from Beyond3ds technical discussion of the 3 different control schemes. He read the same article that I did.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1299346&postcount=168

I question these assumptions, especially the bolded ones.

I don't think there's any strong evidence that Sony's main competitor is the Wii. Sure, they want to move as many PS3's as they possibly can, but few of their actions imply that they're thinking of Nintendo rather than Microsoft. Look to what moves they've made this generation: they priced their console outside of the mainstream's reach at $600, and then acted like they were doing consumers a favor ("get a second job," anyone?).

Since then, none of the games they've highlighted have been aimed at gaining ground on the Wii; they've been about competing with the same demographic that Microsoft is going after. Killzone 2, God of War III, Resistance, Uncharted...these games are aimed almost exclusively at the 16-25 year old male demographic. Their one token effort at going for the expanded audience was a user-generated-content game which requires players to become incredibly familiar with an unintuitive level-editor to get any results, and even then it's absurd to think that most gamers want to make their own game rather than play a game. Even their new motion controller shows that they're still going after Microsoft's audience rather than Nintendo's: the tech demoes they showed off displayed things like swordfighting, RTS's, and sports games, all of which are designed to interest the traditional gamer.

Were Sony's goal to outsell Nintendo, rather than to outsell Microsoft, they would not adopt a tactic of going almost-exclusively after the self-proclaimed hardcore gamer unless they had very questionable judgment (a debatable point, I concede).

I'm even more uncertain that Microsoft's goal is accurately stated here. Again, the software they're releasing tells us the true picture: Gears of War, Mass Effect, Halo, Alan Wake...these are all about the exact same demographic that Sony's going after. Were Microsoft truly interested in muscling into the Wii's turf, they would be focusing more on software that the expanded audience cares about: non-traditional titles, intuitively-controlled games, "friendlier" looking stuff...the type of things that are likely to hook in an audience that has strayed from or hitherto been indifferent to gaming as a whole.

Things like Natal are not examples to the contrary: the few efforts they've made to target the expanded audience have been completed products purchased from third-parties (which demonstrates their real level of commitment to the subject). Much more importantly, I can't think of a single game they've released that's meant to employ the Wii's design philosophy; efforts such as Lips don't do so (it's a karaoke game, not one that revolves around increased accessibility and unexplored possibilities). You're In The Movies and Buzz! definitely don't do so (they feature dumbed-down controls, to the point where Buzz! in particular assumes the player is a retard who needs a monstrously-sized button to chime in, but they're examples of games that are "simplified," not "streamlined." The values behind the Wii are about letting you do just as much as you can with traditional controls, not restricting what you can do to just one or two actions). Even games like Viva Pinata, which theoretically are meant to reach beyond Microsoft's core customers, show that they're not employing the Wii's concepts: while a damned fun game, it's a ridiculously complicated one that requires lots of commitment before the player can even begin to understand what's going on, let alone actually play the game. It remains to be seen if they'll approach Natal differently, but considering what they showcased with it, I have little faith that they will.

Microsoft covets Nintendo's new customers, but it takes only token and fumbling steps towards courting the expanded audience.

I have a very different interpretation of Sony's actions.

Sony took out patents seven years ago for a device similar to the wand they have now, which shows that they very much so were thinking about the possibility of adopting motion controls. It's revealing, however, that they did not make any real effort at doing so until Nintendo unveiled its Wiimote, which, I argue, is the reason that Sixaxis was thrown into the PS3 at the last minute (it was certainly never mentioned before). This tells me two things: Sony actively rejected the idea that motion controls like the Wiimote would be successful, and that this rejection was so strong that they did little to nothing to further develop the idea until the Wiimote proved to be so stunningly successful (or else why wait three and a half years after launch to release your own?). I also can't believe Sony thought it needed someone else to force third-parties along a path Sony wanted them to take: this is the same company that thought it could single-handedly push Blu-Ray technology, and which assumed that third-parties would fall in line with anything Sony did. And if Sony expected that third-parties would do what Nintendo orders them to, they're a few cents short of a dollar. Sony didn't need Nintendo to strike first; Nintendo caught them with their pants down, and they're now scrambling to play catch-up.

I'm also skeptical that porting between Motion+ and the Sony mote will be that common; leaving aside the fact that this would require upscaling (and thus games that are much uglier than other PS3 games), there's the fact that Motion+'s adoption will be aided with Wii Sports Resort, which Sony has yet to show a single bit of software that will convince consumers to get its own controller. That's especially worrisome, considering that it's releasing in just nine months. Will there be enough of these things (which require you to buy a remote and an eyetoy) to justify the expense of porting? And since many developers won't do so, why get this remote when you can get the ported games and so many more on the Wii?

I agree that that's Microsoft's grand plan for gaming (i.e. blocking Sony's threat to Microsoft's core business), but I'm not at all convinced Natal is what you're making it out to be. For starters, unless I've been hearing wrong from several sources, Microsoft didn't make Natal, they bought the base tech (the ZCam) off a company that showed it off at last year's CES, and only expanded on it. If true, this is especially important because it means Microsoft is not completely devoted to making sure this thing takes off: unlike the Wiimote, they haven't put years of thought into what should go into it/what type of software they want to make that needs this controller. Their demo shows that this is definitely the case: what they demonstrated were two "proof-of-concept" demoes, not full-fledged games. If they're to challenge Nintendo for the expanded audience, they'll need games that employ the principles behind the Wii, and they have not shown that they have a firm grasp on what those principles are, let alone how to exercise them.

I quibble with several statements here. Most notably, I believe it will be Nintendo, not third-parties, who ultimately push Nintendo hardware: third-parties will simply sustain any momentum Nintendo carves out. That's less the case with Sony: Sony has some fine developers, but they've always been heavily reliant (although not exclusively so!) on third-parties to sell their hardware. This matters greatly, since it seems to me that third-parties will be much more ambivalent about trail-blazing. I also believe you've misstated who Sony is going for, but those points were made above, and needn't be repeated here.

I also think the situation needs to be framed much differently. Now that Microsoft and Sony have obliquely conceded that the values behind gaming have shifted in the direction Nintendo gambled that they would, it's no longer about "core" versus "expanded." The question we must ask ourselves is "do Microsoft and Sony really understand the limited role of the technology, or do they think they can win by just making the toys and ignoring the fresh tactics that this new form of warfare demands?" Simply put, it doesn't matter how good your equipment is if you have no idea how to use it properly.

I agree to an extent with the statements in these quoted paragraphs: that is indeed the rhetoric Microsoft used, and that is indeed the potential that the tech has. However, it is the bolded sentence where we begin to go our separate ways.

Hardware means little, software means everything. Microsoft may indeed use Natal to challenge the Wii ____ line of games, and the rest of Nintendo's star games. But, and it bears repeating, Microsoft has not shown that it understands what it is that the expanded audience wants, and I'm skeptical that the expanded audience is what Microsoft is going after.

Their efforts to court this group have so far been earnest but dismal. Their unveiling of Natal itself did not demonstrate that they've learned much since then, as the software they showed off does not strike me as the type of thing that people throughout the world will cheerfully shell out cash for. Is it possible that they'll unveil new, legitimate challengers in the next few months before Natal's release? Certainly it's possible. Is it probable that they'll suddenly understand something that no one but Nintendo has been able to so far (and even they've had their missteps)? I would argue strongly that the answer is "no": if they had, they would have shown the world more than a new way to use Microsoft Paint and an improved version of Seamen.

But let us look at what they did show, software-wise. Natal took up twenty of their ninety minutes: the rest of their conference was spent showing off games like Rock Band, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Alan Wake, Halo, and more of the same titles that they've been pushing since they entered the console market. Even with their first-party software, they did not make even a token effort to say that their core titles will be adopting any new values, as Nintendo did when it talked about its core titles at the Wii's launch.

The proof is in the pudding: Microsoft spent the vast majority of its conference targeting the same audience that Sony did, has not demonstrated any intention of altering its core titles to adopt to the new values, and has not shown any software that the expanded audience would care about as more than a novelty (the same applies to Sony, by the way). If they're truly shifting towards making the 360 itself invisible, they did a poor job of showing it at E3. I submit that neither Sony nor Microsoft are really changing course in any serious way, and that their new controllers will not see significant enough support, from first OR third-parties, to significantly alter the course of this generation.

Again Squill a game made for the Wii will not be portable to the PS3, simply because the gulf in grpahics, and in addition the lack of any analog stick on the Purple wand

As for NATAL, its too limited especially for core games, to compete with the Wii as it lacks any sticks, buttons or pointer, and again the graphical gulf between them is large

What the? Aren't you contradicting yourself here? I actually think the most likely scenario is things will stay as they are now. Sony's wands and Microsoft's Natal will not take off, which will lead to the above conclusion.

I think people are getting carried away with technology. Sure, the Natal concept is nice, and improved motion control sounds great. However, what are Sony / Microsoft going to do with it?

Remember, people bought the Wii for its games. They're buying it for Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, etc. The expanded audience, such as women, play and enjoy these games. Can Sony or Microsoft create games that can capture this audience with their new tech? They have never been able to in the past, and they haven't shown anything convincing otherwise at E3.

Nintendo also has a massive advantage here - with games like Wii Sports Resort, Motion+ will quickly build up a large install base. It feels like a natural progression, as the peripheral is a small attachment (like the nunchuck). Nintendo has every reason to support it as much as possible, since they can assume many people will be buying it.

On the other hand, Sony and Microsoft will need to build up their install base from the ground up. Gamers only interested in buying Call of Duty 7, Halo 4, Gears 3, GT5, etc will have no incentive to adopt motion. The motion controlled games will be based on entirely seperate platforms - the motion solution is not an addition to the current controllers, but a replacement. Third parties will not fully support it until it has proven itself, so the job of selling systems falls entirely on first/second parties (or MS paying third parties).

I imagine support for the Sony wand will be something like their Eyetoy, which isn't significant. As for Natal, I can't see it taking off at all - it'll cost too much, it won't offer enough practical use, and it will lack games. 

Things may change when the next round of consoles come, but until then, the current positions of Ninty / Sony / MS will not change. Perhaps this is all in preparation for future consoles, but otherwise I do not think this tacked on motion is a good idea, as it will not help the 360 or PS3.

Btw, did you mix up the eastern / western fronts? (Or am I missing something?)

"excellent understanding of computer networking"?? ... Hm...Imagine if Linus would go into consoles...ow wait...nah, that's not the same.

That was a good read.

Although, I feel as though I asked a question and instead of a answer I got five more questions.

not exctly, many gamers have Wii and/or one HD console, the amount of gamers that have Wii and/or one HD console are much more than gamers who got both Ps3 and Xbox360, so gamers divide into Xbox360/Ps3 and still own Wii and this favors Nintendo a lot

and LoL, how can NIntendo be against the world, the world is WITH Nintendo!!

and the funniest OF ALL:

Nintendo does not even compete with Microsoft and Sony, LoL people who were saying this must feel really stupid now!