So we've heard how Natal/SonyMo doesn't have analog sticks and buttons (yet?), which clearly excludes many game genres but their is something else Natal/SonyMo can't do.

I'm sure most PS3/360 users won't be interested in this (or maybe they are now) but I am very suprised that neither Sony or MS appear to be interested in this feature either.

It's something that people seem have forgotton about when comparing each company's motion tech.

When announced it was quoted as being able to "take our big leads in audience expansion and effectively lap the competition".

It's something that has allowed Wii to sell over 40M units of software and hardware in about 80 weeks (~500,000/week).

Something that was widely scoffed at but now appears to be years ahead of it's time.

What is it? ........................ THE WII BALANCE BOARD.

Expanded audience - Like I said, I'm sure many/most 360/PS3 users aren't that interested but in my opinion, MS and Sony have just made a massive mistake. A large part of Wii's success at expanding the audience can be directly attributed to the balance board and Wii Fit. Maybe Sony/MS have no intention of using their motion to attract the expanded audience in which case, support will be pretty thin. Maybe they will release a BB at a later date. 2011 maybe, 2012? Either way, it doesn't bode well.

If the BB was a console, it would be ~7M behind Wii at this stage of it's life (Wii 27M, BB 20M, PS3 12M, X360 10M).

For MS/Sony to ignore this really suprises me. I thought the skateboard thing at the 360 conference was a BB at first. I thought MS were taking serious steps to compete with Wii. Then I saw that it was a gimmick that can't even tell you your weight. IMO Sony/MS should have just gone for a BB. I don't see how selling motion to those who already own the console leads to console sales. Had they appealed to the wife/girlfriend/mother, they would have stood a much better chance at increasing sales.

Core gamer - Like most I was impressed by the tech shown at E3. But I have to ask, excluding the face/voice rec stuff, is their anything Natal/SonyMo can do that Wii, M+(x2?) and the balance board can't do? I can't think of anything. Not only can the Wii already do most of what Natal/SoMo can today but the Wii also seems to be much more precise. Precision in gaming. Reggie seemed to make a point of this at E3 in regards to M+.

Does Nintendo already know the disadvantages of camera tech? Did Nintendo predict years ago how the competition would respond? Is this why they rejected camera motion tech? Are Nintendo really so far ahead of the curve?

Who knows? All I know is that with M+ and a BB the Wii can do everything shown at e3 today (excl Milo) and appears more precise (not sure how precise the pet thing is).

(side note, I predict the Wii Vitality Sensor to sell more than SonyMo/Natal combined)

Sony balance board.
Xbox balance.

@ Pyro as Bill

I'm pretty sure they said the sony wand had an analog stick on it or will have one... can't remember now.

Motion controlled games are also so 1991 (powered by an Amiga 3000, a system voted by experts as most powerful computer of its time):

"The stereoscopic display reacts to head movements, the position of the joystick controls movement of the player's virtual hand, and a button on the joystick moves the player forwards in the game arena."





It was very innovative for its time, before Wolfenstein3D the system had a multi-player FPS with different hight levels (unlike Wolf3D), and Deathmatch / Capture the Flag modes.

Sonys wand has buttons. They even made a jab during the tech demo and said" we learned with the eye toy that some experiences requires buttons."

they said you can use natal in conjunction with the normal xbox 360 controller, and the sony wand will probably end up offering just as much as the wii controller. So, the only thing missing is the balance board, which really only notices how people shift their weight, but with both sony and microsoft using a camera to track peoples movements they could effectively recreate the idea behind the balance board.

For example, you will notice how the balance board is used in skateboarding and snowboarding games, that is very easily done on natal. Dodging punches is also very easily done. Really, the only thing that couldn't be done is to tell you how much you weigh, but who cares about that.

What does any of that have to do with the state of the current generation, MikeB? Nothing.

Natal i think can do balance, just in a very different way. I mean, they showed that skateboarding thing as part of that video demo, so at least its a possibility

Can't do weight, but is weight all that important outside of exergaming?

I think it underlines many of the ideas aren't as new and innovative some fanboys think they are.

PR and marketing have a major effect on people's views, for example just a few days ago an OSNews editor (I wrote articles there as well, he plans to do a review soon) tried a new updated browser (Origyn) for AmigaOS4.x and said: "Awesome, tabbed browsing on Amiga!". Not knowing tabbed browsing started on the Amiga (IBrowse) before Opera implemented this feature.

He's a tech nut like me, so ordinary people are even less likely to distinguish the innovative ideas vs great copy-cat marketeers (that would refer especially to Microsoft).