Who didn't expect this? I mean seriously, its Microsoft.

They charge 100 dollars for a friggin cheapo wireless adapter (free for Wii and PS3), charge 150 dollars for a 120GB HD (you can get a 3rd party Terabyte drive into the PS3 for less then that), charge 49 dollars for online gaming (which is free on every single other device be it PC, Mac, PS3, Wii, PSP, DS or anything else) and led the charge to the 59.99 for Next Gen games price point.

If this is less then 200 dollars I'll be amazed. I have no idea why anyone would pay that personally, I mean it looks kind of interesting but really only a step above what the eyetoy has done for years. I'm certainly much happier to pay 30 bucks for a Wii or PS3 style motion stick then any insanely expensive "exiting new thing" solution.

Incidentally you can use all kinds of cameras with the PS3 even, yes, the Xbox live camera of all things. You can also use just about any mic, not just the PS3 mic, any keyboard/mouse, not just Sony branded ones (if sony branded keyboards even exist). I'm 90% sure you'll be able to use a 3rd party Motion controller soon enough as well, thats just how Sony rolls.

For those estimating nearly 100 dollars for the PS3 version of motion controllers I bet the real cost will be half that, or one fourth the Natal price tag (much like Wii costs for motion controls)

I REALLY wish people would understand what the hell Natal is before speaking.  If Natal was nothing more than Eyetoy it wouldn't be getting the buzz from developers that it is.

What people seem to fail to realize is that it's NOT just a camera and microphone.  It has software built in to analyze and interpret the data is receives. 

For example, any microphone can listen to you and record what you're saying, but it doesn't UNDERSTAND you.  That job requires software to interpret the sounds that the microphone is hearing into words that games can understand.  Sure, the developer can program their own speech recognition software, but Natal is built on the Microsoft speech recognition software that they have been developing for YEARS.   This is complex stuff. 

The same goes for the realtime skeletal tracking and face recognition.  Beyond the fact that Eyetoy cannot see depth, something has to take this data and construct it into something that developers and actually use.  Face recognition?  Same thing.  Eyetoy can see if there is a face there, but can it determine who you are?  No.

All of these are things that different devices can do to varying degrees, but what Microsoft has done is combine these into a cohesive package that is more than the sum of it's parts.

Developers don't need to take raw data like sounds, images and depth information and create software to interpret that data into something USEABLE, Natal does that internally.  All developers need to do is access the output and THAT is why they are excited.

^^Excellent post.

All of this sounds like a lot of R&D which does back up his point on MS charging a lot for the peripheral. Sony's wand is much simpler by comparison, so in all likelihood it will be cheaper. I believe Impulsivity was orginally commenting on price so in that respect what you are saying backs up his orginal point. If MS can overcharge on standard peripherals then what are they going to charge on a peripheral where the tech is actually relatively advanced?

I'm still not entirely convinced Natal will deliver everything it promises, but if it does MS may get away with a high price point (dependent on marketing).

microsoft really wants this to be a huge success, so they really should make it under $100.

well it better be fairly inexpensive or its not going to catch on. If its gonna be over $50 it better have an awesome game or 2 come with it

They better bundle it with a Halo game and a hooker if they expect this this to sell at any price over $70.

FIXED!!!

natal was just killed.

anything over 75$ it's a big mistake.

No, you want it to be a big mistake. I would say anything much over $100.00 is seriously going to hamper the sales of the thing. However, the moment they come out with a Wii fit sort of game, My wife wants to buy it...yay for me!