It's not fancying it up. Read the 360 manual. M$ are noted in 2005 E3 saying about the USB ports. They can feed directly into processing information at high streaming speeds. ( Much higher than ordinary USB's on the PS3 or PC ). It looks as though it's been designed for something like this. It's designed for any info for CPU's, GPU's and Ram to travel through it linking directly to the motherboard. If Natal has a decent enough CPU, games could take advantage of Natal's memory and CPU and not use any motion controls. Halo Reach?!

I guess Microsoft has invented a CPU that doesn't generate heat, or will Natal have a cooling system? Will Natal have a power brick?

Will game developers create games that require resources on an optional accessory? Sorry, you can't play Gears of War 3 because you don't have Natal.

The original post could have used a few links to resources that confirm some of these claims. It seems as though this entire post was based on rumors.

We know M$ are targetting it with as much hype and resource for advertising as a new console launch. So I see this:

There will be game boxes of 2 types. The standard we have now, and a new type maybe with Natal across the top of the box? Or whatever the actual name is when released. Whatever, I see 2 types of boxing.

Yes to your question about developers. Because it will be clear that some games are Natal and some aren't. M$ are banking on Natal to be a success. Personally I believe it has already had more hype than when 360 was announced. I think everyone will have Natal, and developing wont be an issue when 360+ Natal is selling 5-600,000/ week after release.

Yes I fully believe this scenario is going to happen. Also believe it will be viewed as the upgrade to Wii by casuals. Remeber they wont care as long as it simplifies controls and looks better on there new HDTV's they have.

I am not talking about motion enabled games, obviously you will need Natal for those.  I was referring to your comment below.

"If Natal has a decent enough CPU, games could take advantage of Natal's memory and CPU and not use any motion controls. Halo Reach?!"

You are implying that developers would leverage Natal's cpu/memory for core game development.  That's just not practical.  Natal would have to have a very powerful cpu and memory architecture for a developer to even consider it.  That ties in to my questions about power/cooling systems.  I think the OP is trying to turn Natal into something it is not. 

Even if it's a single core CPU say 2ghz from yesteryear, it's still going to add performance. And say even an extra 128mb of ram would help indeed. More res on textures. 1080p 60FPS with ease becomes a reality. And if the dev uses no motion but use the CPU and Ram, the box would still be a Natal box. After all cooling for a CPU like I described would be vey easy nowadays. It's just a bit more oompf.

You are describing an engineering nightmare.  

It's appalling to me how many of you pretend to understand computers and processors and GPUs when the majority of you are talking complete bullshit. OP is laughable at best and doesn't deserve a response as it is complete and utter garbage. You obviously have NO knowledge of streaming data.

Rant from a Computer Science Engineering student...

It is called a dev kit. It makes it easier to develop games if you have more ram

Amen to that (from someone who actually _built_ computers 25 years ago..).

Me I'd find it extremely funny if Sony came out with a software hack that could control Natal from a PS3 (after all, they have the SPUs in their cell processor and some of those are still idling along in today's games...)

Amen to that :)