Nice colorful post :)

I didn't really mean it hit a saturation point, what I was trying to say is that the more consumers you successfully reach the more difficult it is to keep that growth going. With the PS2 after 2003 sales slowed down a little. I believe the appeal of the PS2 was more broad, and the competition less fierce. In my opinion this saturation will be reached more quickly with the Wii, and I think it might be an obstacle.

Yes, but how many of those will constitute late adopters? In my opinion, relying on this audience alone will have limited benefits at this point. It is important to drop prices even if a little bit. You can't argue anymore that demand has decreased.

Okay. Lemme try to explain my point simply. Being hot, or not, sometimes can be gauged in simple ways. The Wii was hot, is it still hot? Maybe it is, but if we only use numbers to determine that we won't be able to predict the future. People evaluate their purchases in very simple ways, most people don't necessarily want to waste time on checking certain details, or making particularly educated choices. The great majority of people want in on what is hot. This has benefitted the Wii, you can't argue with that. A truly mainstream product needs to be hot, and what determines that can vary.

What "Dreamcasting" does is exactly what you said. Consider Wii Motion Plus a new platform, along with Natal and whatever Sony is cooking up. If WM+ is about to be launched, and Natal is being shown as a PR stunt, is it not "Dreamcasting"? I think this stuff works more than you can imagine, and you may see the effects of it very soon. If something is seen as redundant, or not hot among early adopters, it may be because a new reference point has been shown that makes it look that way. A lot of naive people do know about Natal from the mainstream media, and if they don't they'll be figuring it out soon either by looking at the media online or simply word of mouth. I'm not necessarily concerned about Nintendo next year because I know Natal is mostly smoke and mirrors, but right now I think they need to do something. Obviously not reacting to Natal, but they need to find a new strength. The way they're headed now they can't stay, and even they agree.

@Azelover: The yellow part is somewhat contradicting the concept of expanding the audience and new gamers.
There's a point to take into consideration, that due to differences between Wii and PS360, the overlap between them is bigger than last gen, into which the more fierce competition, in terms of exclusives, contributes aswell.
So, it's unlikely that Wii will hit saturation earlier than PS2 did.

For the green part, weren't the sales up from last year? The demand seems to be there, only the supply has met demand.
If you can't rely on the audience that spends money into entertainment, who can you rely into? The whole industry is about these customers. The pricecut will eventually come, when there's need for one, not before. At the moment, there's not much of a reason for a pricecut.

And the blue part. "Dreamcasting" didn't happen to a product that already had established its position on the market. "Dreamcasting" happened early in its life with early adopters.
Besides, it wasn't PS2 that killed Dreamcast, it was Segas own mistakes with it and Saturn.

No matter what you want to call Natal, it's long forgotten before it reaches the market anyway, if it ever does. People are interested only in products they can buy. On top of that, there's already Eyetoy, that didn't hit the jackpot either and considering the M$ presentation, it's not likely to get any hype outside of fanboys.
If you didn't notice, M$ didn't market it with values even remotedly close to values Nintendo markets Wii.

First off, what mart of "not for everybody" didn't you get? Did you buy Wii fit? Well, somebody did. Unfortunately, Wii fit cannot be used for a wide range of applications like NATAL. Also, as i mentioned before, I suspect any verbal commands would be fairly striaght forward. Let's keep in mind this is all specularion as to how MS will impliment commands. I am merely giving ideas to all the nay sayers out there. Inovation is a wonderful thing, if you have the balls to do it. MS obviously does. Sony and Wii...well...not lately.

i don't get it but anyway.... do you still think all games can work on Natal the way you discribe it?

i personally don't think your ideas would make Natal a better experience, and in my opinion, Natal is limited in 90% party/family games, the commands won't really help in most core games for the reasons i said

sure MS can still get a lot out of it, but WM+ has more possibilities i believe

Some points.

Nintendo supposedly rejected the technology behind project Natal. (See thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=76187&page=1; Original article (though the site seems to be having issues right now): http://www.gamingfront.net/news/828/nintendo-rejected-project-natal-technology/)

Had Nintendo added on to its non-traditional controls while Sony and Microsoft did not, the gaming media would have had a field day. Nintendo is making them look foolish and they don't seem to take it well. Most called for Nintendo to go the Sega route (software only) for consoles.

Personally, I think it has potential but a lot of unknowns at present. It reminds me a lot of the playing the Eye Toy on the PS2. And for those who look at something from Microsoft with a jaundiced eye, remember Microsoft is the company known for "smoke and mirrors" demonstrations.

Right now, how people are saying this is perfect and a total change, without thinking it through, are in a rush to judgment. It could be. But there needs to be questions answered. Personally, I think it would be much more of a game changer in a new console rather than as an add-on. Those have not had the best success.

Mike from Morgantown

It's a fair point that people should question the technology Mike but the main point of this thread was Nintendo would have been flamed for releasing this technology. This is not true as is now clear from the Nintendo crowd trolling the Sony and Microsoft threads saying it's crap and will not work without having actually experienced anything themselves. I personally think the threads point was proved early on when the only answer people had to the OP question was to flame Natal. I don;t see how this thread as anywhere left to travel now and there are other more relevant threads to Sony and Microsoft's new devices.

well, let's summarise

i said that what Natal has shown us until now is 90% family/sports/party games, so i don't understand why core gamers like it

if Nintendo had shown that instead at E3, they would receive even more hate than now, gamers would look at it with a more negative eye let's say

ironman says that core gamers are hyped because MS said it will work will Halo and Call of Duty

me/some people say it's impossible and that Natal is very limited for core games and that WM+ has more possibilites

ironman says it can work for all games, through speech recognition, commands same commands for all games, walk on place, say cover left, jump in real life to jump, crouch in real life and so on, say the combo you want to use for fighters (english lesson basically) : P

seems speech recognition can work, but most games would require different commands and action games/fighters need fast gameplay, so commands wouldn't work because until you say cover left you'll be shot

also, walk in place can be cool but walking, jumping and speaking let's say for one hour can be tiring

and personally i'm back at the conclusion that, without a controller it cannot work for most action/core games (maybe a swordplay or karate game, not much more)

and i still can't understand how Natal can work so perfect for core gamers (or most of them suddently became casual), and therefore, why are they so..... fans of Natal!? because they want it to kill Nintendo/Wii  (i don't speak about ironman, generally about more than 50% of core gamers, and we watch it on other sites as well)

and i still belive that if Nitendo had announced Natal instead, people would see it with a more negetive eye, my opinion

Burnout is not exactly call of duty or halo

is that a reason you say Wii hating has grown lately?

you explained 3 times, and all 3 times it sounded the same stupid : P
it simply couldn't work that way, but maybe MS has a better idea, i don't know

so, you base the fact that all core games can work with Natal when MS said they will make it work with call of duty and halo, and you don't know how they are going to work, you are hyped by the idea, but what if it turns out bad?

and if it was about to work the way you explained (commands etc), i believe most people prefer buttons

*i don't consider myself as a fanboy, i said a lot of times that i'll get a 360 if core games work well with Natal, but it just seems a bit impossible to me

basically i'm a fan of Sony/Nintendo, but this gen Nintendo has grown more inside me : P