Not alot of people will agree with your ND statement, it does produce AAA games, Uncharted 2 got most of the GOTY awards remember.

anyway you are right hardcore user can choose to ignore Natal if they want to, do you think it could be used on Windows for navigation the OS as similar to the iphone( obvioulsy Natal tracks your fingers)

Its a critical darling but then again I do have a different definition of what makes a great design team.

As for Natal, it was actually first designed as an operating system interface. Oh and its getting a PC release too, you could say its just a console exclusive.

Ok fair enough, when I first saw Natal, that idea came to mind, strange how really it was actually designed for that purpose lol.

Oh Designing you say, do you know what design methodologies each developer uses?? I am betting none of them use the traditional WATERFALL MODEL... Even us at College did not use that model anymore, It was mainly prototyping we used, but I bet that even has changed, things change so quickly

Edit: I am pretty sure ND had to do their Design very carefully, and take into consideration the different architecture for the game

LOL but its kind of not appropriate to talk about such things here.

Personally, I don't know of modern systems that do revisions that speed up the system and make it faster, etc. etc.  When a company like sony comes out with their slim versions, the only specs that change are size and power consumption.  I do remember an upgrade that came with Donkey Kong 64 for the N64...but personally can't remember any since then.

  I highly doubt if xbox would release a slim version, it would have newer, better equipment in it.  If it were to have newer and better equipment in it, one could argue it isn't even the same system.  It would in theory be the Xbox 360 v. 2.0.  Not to mention, knowing microsoft, whether or not this would be a cheaper alternative, they would not release a new version of the xbox that is better and faster, and then charge consumers the same price for it.  They charge $100 for a wifi piece for your 360, you honestly think they will charge the same or lower price for upgraded equipment...

Also, I do believe that if Natal comes out in the way that it should, and works properly for games, etc. etc.  Then, yes, Natal is to the 360 what Wii is to the Gamecube.  Unfortunately, I don't think it is physically possible to have simple movement controls without a controller for the 20+ controls that you see in a shooting game.  How about a game like Street Fighter...you really think you are going to do extreme moves that often (in playstation) will involve pushing r1, r1, triangle, circle, a complete spin with the analog stick, three quick taps of triangle...I have no clue if that is an actual move, but the hard ones do look a lot like that.  It just doesn't seem probable that it will be able to handle games that require such precision like this.  If you want to take this precision away, it also takes the fun of the game away...the best moves are supposed to be hard, but how hard can they possibly make it before Natal will not recognize what the heck is going on?

The more I hear about Natal and Sony’s wand, the more I am reminded of the Sega 32x and Sega CD. Both were late-generation add-ons that the dedicated fanbase of the Sega Genesis heavily anticipated, and were praised because of how they “Enhanced” the possibilities of the system. Unfortunately, they were add-ons that were overly expensive that few publishers supported and they did not sell well; and their failure hurt the reputation of Sega, which then destroyed all remaining respect with the release of an amazingly expensive unsupported system (the Saturn).

I personally won’t be surprised if Nintendo was looking at add-ons like the 32x and Sega CD when they decided that it was a bad idea to release an add-on for the Gamecube; and decided to make the Wii as their system for this generation.

I think the PS Wands may have more chance of being a success, due to them being so similar, but you are right, having them as add-ons does indeed give them a very big disadvantage.

I still remeber when the PS Eye was first launched, yes sure it was fun for a while, but the lack of support it got was bad, the new PS Eye has had a couple of games released ffor it which have been innovative (Eye of Judgement), but again, there was not lots off support, I just hope there is more support for the wands outside of just the release...

Finally there is one thing Natal has in it's favor at the moment, and that is good feedback from developers etc.

The Wii is an example of a modern system which was a revision of an older system and it too came 5 years after the release of the initial version. Im trying to see if the Xbox 360 can fit into that model completely. My reasoning is trying to reconcile information I have heard with the realities of the console market.

An upgraded Xbox 360 would be more expensive and Microsoft would charge more for it, than if they didn't upgrade the system. The difference is the delta between the price charged and the price they would charge with older hardware. Its quite a good way to maintain your hardware revenue by doing a mid term refresh and its cheaper than designing an entirely new architecture.

Oh and I have reserved judgement for Natal itself I wouldn't know how great or badly it would perform and I probably won't have any idea until E3 rolls around. But if Natal can make the move you gave as an example simpler then I don't see anything wrong with it, the reason why they are so unintuitive is because they use a controller. Fighting games have become less popular as they have fought to cater to the loud hardcore userbase and the only one which has maintained did the opposite and thats SSBB.

I think you may well be right, upgrading the XBOX 360 will be one way of handling a so called console re-release, lots of fans I noticed already want the 720, so it could turn out to be a popular solution, also it should stretch out the X360's life quite a bit more, it will be intersting if MS dares to make such a move.

I believe Microsoft will go down this incremental improvment route and this will also involve processor and memory improvments. You could say we have already seen examples of this in the handheld market.

I strongly suspect the 360 version of the Slim will be a 360 with Natal inside which may be a sufficient draw with its other improvements and Natal to make some good sales and prelong the console life.

I doubt you will see anything dramatic with the optical drive other than removing some of the current restrictions. Microsoft are very heavily focused on the cloud approach, it would be a good idea though to make some improvments in the Hard Drive arrangements.