...it's going to be the next technology to be inexplicably capitalised by its worshippers.

Lots of recent posts by Microsoft fans have talked not about Natal, the controller, but NATAL, MS's saviour that will sell them 100m consoles and crush Sony. Just as Cell is an innovative IBM CPU, but CELL is the subject of the cult of B3LIEVE that will let Sony dominate the market.

Natal is a ripoff, but NATAL defines innovation. Natal's demos were faked, but NATAL is fully complete and has waves of third-party support just waiting to be unleashed.

So to sum up, you think it's cannon fodder for the fanboy wars.

and he's probably right.

"Natal's demos were faked"


you sure?

The thing is...most of the cell hype came form sony. Cell was hyped over and over by sony while the press jsut reported on specs they were given.

MS demoed Natal to the press. Press took the ball and started running with it.

While your post is full if statements that may or may not be true (demos faked - i dont think so, it being a rip off - again not really) even you have to admit that if Natal turns out to work as they are saying it should, its hell of a lot more interesting than wii motion controls or the PS3 motion stick.

Well whatever the case may be, it's still making YOU and a whole lot of other people still talk about it, seemingly more than anything else, almost a week after it was unvieled. That's gotta say something.

depends on your definition.

what natal/milo can do vs. the impressiong MS tried to give you that they could do are different.  that has been documented in several reviews with those that got to play with it at E3.  so faked - not exactly, just over exaggerated.  frankly, the second peter opened his mouth i knew an exageration that he can't possibly deliver on was about to come out of his mouth.

Yes, this. I'm sure it works as a motion controller, but the final product won't be nearly as good as they implied. Or if it is, it'll take a few more years of R&D (like Nintendo needed from WR -> WM+) to perfect it. Either way, they can't possibly deliver on their promises.

What promises are they not going to deliver on?

- It's not going to be 1:1 whole body movement to action on screen. The technology simply isn't that good (and if it was it'd be $500/unit.) Look how much the presenter failed at getting an Avatar to lift up a foot. Maybe arm movements will be 1:1, to match WM+.

- The camera is going to have bugs just like the Wiimote did before WM+. It'll work as advertised in Natal v2; it would be a technology first if it did it right first time. If they do wait to perfect it it won't hit 2010.

- The Milo demonstration was set up to give the appearance of real, intelligent AI. In the real world it will be obvious it isn't.

- Third-party support won't be anywhere near what they imply by having famous people on stage. It has no buttons, and third-parties aren't going to abandon non-Natal-buying X360 owners. Also, it's incompatible with the PS motion sensing. You won't see installments of Halo, CoD, etc. with Natal.