Being that the Wii has still seen very healthy year over year growth outside of Japan, what makes you think they have hit a saturation point yet?

The Economic downturn represents a change in people's buying habits towards an overall reduction in household spending; this does not mean that any one area of their spending will (necessarily) see a reduction in spending. It is entirely possible that a reduction in spending on entertainment could translate into lower spending on travel (or other forms of expensive entertinment) to less expensive entertianment like videogames or movies.

A family of 4 can easily justify the purchase of a $250 console and $750 in games if it means that they can reduce their spending on other entertianment by more than $1,000.

I think this "Dreamcasting" is just an excuse for people who were unable to capatalize on the first mover advantage. These systems were never that popular, and the products that supposedly hurt there sales never caused a reduction in the rate their console was selling. Most of the world never knew about what the PS2 was rumored to do, or had ever seen the Killzone 2 video, when they decided to purchase or not purchase the Dreamcast or XBox.

Right now, the vast majority of potential Wii owners have never seen or heard of Project NATAL and are unlikely to hold off buying a $250 console with a game in order to buy a $200+ console, a $100 add on, and a $60 game 2 years from now.

@ironman

*facepalm*...whatever, you obviously dont know what a contradiction is. and trust me, your not the only one who has had to repeat himself to get a real answer.

you know what, im done. im gonna stop talking to you before this becomes a debate about wheather you contridicted yourself or im wrong or whatever. iv made my case about NATAL and you simply have yet to make a good enough case to make me change my mind. i dont know, maybe your just not that good at it. untill i see MS put CoD or halo on NATAL and it isnt a complete disaster, i will maintain that NATAL is very limited in what it can do and is in no way "unlimited". maybe i am being very closeminded about it but enough dissapointments have made me so.

so go ahead, quote me and make a few more cheap insults so you feel like the clever one. as for me, im just gonna sit back, give people my opinion, and wait to see how things will turn out. and who knows, maybe NATAL is the next big thing. or maybe it will be a complete failure.

Heh, my prediction about having to explain how what I said was not a contradiction, has come true. Do you have any concept of what a contradiction is? My two statemnts were in no way contradictory. Here is why. If I had said you must use NATAL WITH the controller, that would have been a contradiction. But I said, you can use NATAL OR a controller, not both. I said NATAL completely eliminates the need for a controller, and it does. you don't need a controller while playing a NATAL game. Therefore, you sir, are wrong.

Also, your refusal to read my past posts were the ONLY reason you had to repeat your questions.

Lastly, I don't expect to win you over to NATAL. As I said before, it's not going to be for everybody. 

The same media that went crazy over Nintendo's motion controls at E3 06?

@Ironman: You're effectively pointing out the reasons why Natal won't work. Your vision is making it too complicated for the player as well as the developer.

Also, "planning to" doesn't equal "will". M$ could have had a playable version of Halo with Natal in E3. That would have caused people to be less sceptical. Now to think of it, they could have had a playable version of any game with Natal in E3.

come on ironman, you make it sound like an English lesson with physical education!

i personally don't have that much patient to learn those cammands for one or more games, and also, not everyone speaks English the same way, you know

you will also need to speak too much, playing video games and speaking with someone won't work either and you can't tell everyone to shut up!!  i personally don't see any way this can work, at least the way you say it

walk in place like in Wii Fit could be cool actually, but jumping and all that movement will make it a bit tiring, but still could work for some time

the "you are the controller" concept actually limits the whole thing, nobody will learn commands for each game, that's for sure

so i think Natal is still limited, you can walk/move in place but for how long?

and if it's going to be playable with original controller why bother to buy Natal ( move for over 1 hour, learn english commands, get tired, pay extra money and all that)

I personally don't think Natal will be limiting, but it needs to be used in conjunction with a controller, like a wii-mote, like Sony is doing (at least for games like 1st/3rd person shooters. Sorry Ironman, but the whole idea of saying "walk left" would not work. You need to be able to turn in a split second in games, even the time to say "walk left" is far too long. Controls like that would be really gimmicky when people want/need controls that are intuitive.

I think a joystick would work great for walking, but jumping, dodging, crouching, and other such moves would be cool with Natal. Voice command would work in co-op modes or interacting with NPCs. It could even work with switching weapons and items.

The whole :you are the controller" will work for certain games, but generally the simpler ones. For games with more complicated actions, a Natal/controller option is needed. I bet by the time they come out with the product they have such a system.

Wow, way to change the argument. Sadly, you won't be winning this one either. As I already said, NATAL is not for everybody. Also, I beleive I stated that MS will be the deciding factor in how they approach the "commands" for NATAL. I'm sure with the software, they can definately formulate better ways to actuate movement in the game.

Nobody needs to "learn" the commands for every game. Assuming that MS even uses verbal commands, I suspect they would be canned, and synonimous to all games.

Voice recognition, does that mean anything to you? The NATAL VR system is based on Windows 7's VR system (and it is a very accurate one) Also, couple that with the facial recognition, and NATAL's software will be able to tell when you are talking, or joking around with other people, and when you are actually playing the game. Doubtfull? Read up on Milo, you can tell him jokes, he doesn't recognize the joke, but he recognizes your tone of voice, as well as your facial body language.

NATAL will immerse you farther into the game than a controller would, don't like that thought? Well here's a novel idea, don't buy it.   

@Ironman: It looks like you're expecting something different from Natal than what it is.

The problem with Natal people have here, isn't Natal itself, but the expectations other people have set for it.

I don't have any doubts that Natal wouldn't be great for what it is, if it will have the right software developed for it.
It isn't a question whether the games could be made as you suggest, the question is does it make any sense.

having the same commands for every game would be very good, but for god's sake, it may work for some shooters, but many shooters have different features, an action game like Assasin's Creed will require different commands, an RPG will require different

but you can't change the fact that it will be tiring to walk in place and jump and speak at the same time for over 1 hour to the tv, even if it's 100% efficient, action games play fast and i guess it's much faster to push a button than tell what you want to do, because until you say cover left, you'll be shot 3 times

still, i don't understand how you could play Steetfighter let's say for 1 hour on Natal? every fighter has different combos (commands for you and Natal), and until you say the combo the CPU will kill you, except if the fighting is that slow that is very boring

maybe it's true that Natal can recognize your voice accurately, this just eliminated the "a lot of people talk" problem, what about the rest?

if Natal plays every game the way you say it, sure it's not for everyone