Too soon and too much of a commit on top of very recent HD TV purchases. I give it 3 years then it will become common.

You see, I happen to work in the financial services industry (investment management to be precise). For every analyst that says one thing, I can find you another who says the exact opposite. This is how it works in this industry. Even market consensus is sometimes worse. Don't take Goldman Sachs's opinions as a revelation, they're not.

I am a financial professional and I have been a gamer for 25+ years, so I beg to differ. I do know what I'm talking about, even if I don't concur with GS. Believe me, it happens all the time.

Strange how that footage was the main thing that made me say "ewwwwww" the most. Yeah theyre laughing and giggling and fallon is stumbling all over himself, but he also did that with Bon Jovi when they wer eon his show and theyre shit too. So just because fallon enjoys flailing around with no skill or accurate controls with dodgeballs coming at him doesnt mean its quality.

From what ive gathered most of the people thinking natal will be amazing dont point to what we have seen as evidence, its what they THINK is possible. I'm judging on what ive seen which, imo, is awful.

But i think the wii is awful too but people love it, its just my opinion, but i dont think your ein the majority being impressed with actual footage we have seen so far, people always say "yeah but its so early it will get better" when they pull for natal, not "look how amazing that dodgeball game is"

Yeah, but there is many, many people who did not buy a HDTV yet. With 3D they will start to feel a strong motive to really buy a new tv besides popular CRT ones. Many people don't feel the urge for HDTV watching, but 3D... well, let's wait and see.

I don't think they're loyal at all, but I see no sign yet that Natal will entice either.  It seems to have the most 'hardcore' view of all the consoles right now, and shifting market perception is hard, that's all.

I don't see it as impossible, but I don't see any evidence yet to make it likely.  All we've really seen on Natal is some sub Wii titles and some frenetic ball titles that would give the average person a heart attack after probably 15 minutes of jumping around, plus some tech demos of Burnout to show you can hook it up to current games and confirm its not the best interface for them.

Sachs might have seen stuff we haven't, but I doubt it.  They just seem to be assuming that MS marketing Natal plus the fact it's designed to appeal to casuals will succeed.  They may be right, but that seems a triffle light as compelling evidence for me.  I do expect Natal to be marketed, particularly in US, way better than Sony ever did with EyeToy or the like, but I think pure marketing won't carry it.

EDIT: just to put more context into that look how the Wii spanked the HD consoles in US over holidays.  To me that shows that the Wii still has the zeitgeist and the clear preference of the broader market.  It's not just that Natal has to succed on its own terms, but to do so it has (I think) to reverse that momentum and I just think that's easier said than done.  By the time Natal (and by extension Arc) launches I'm just wondering how many people won't have a Wii who're interested in that kind of gaming.  360 would need some seriously headline getting titles to prompt Wii owners to stump for 360/Natal combination, and I'm just concerned how many purchasers are left for 360/PS3 to target with their controls?

The casual market is fickle to be sure - but it's not known for immediately re-investing in something too similar too soon.

again. I'm interested to see how it works in a 4 player sports game like Tennis or Madden. simply using it as a buzzer would be very different to use it to pass, run and receive.

good read, as always

It is not that Natal can't succeed, it is just that the "fun" title (ala wiisport/wiifit) that will drive the sales crazy remains to be seen ...

Q: What about multiplayer games? How does that work? On the demos it seemed like you use voice commands to lock in a particular player.

A: We actually do a full skeletal mapping for more than one person in the scene.

Q: How many people do you map and how many can play at once?

A: It depends on fidelity and other things that you want to bring into the equation -- how many points. We feel we're going to be at the pont where we can have full-room fun experiences. It's not one person, one person's skeleton, one person's voice. We're going to have full skeletal mapping for multiple people in the room.

It's going to be fun. Because we can map your skeleton, we'll know where you are.

Q: Do players have to be in the same plane to be "seen" by the device? What if one is standing behind the other?

A: There's a lot of magic in the technology. Think -- we know what a skeleton looks like. Once we map to you, even if we lose you for a certain amount of time, we can interpolate where you are. It works very well, it's very impressive.

The software and what it's able to track and the interpolation that's able to happen are really where the magic happens. That's why I say it's really about the research that went in to develop the technology we have today.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/technologybrierdudleysblog/2009296568_e3_new_info_on_microsofts_nata.html

Analysts also predicted that Titanic and Avatar were going to be box office failures. Look what happened.

Honestly this is a wait and see for me. I'm not too sure whether or not many HD fans will adapt to using motion controllers. If they wanted them they could have just purchased a Wii. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

 The Natal has far more potential than the Wii. Let me know when the Wii doesn't require a controller.

 And the technology will be used beyond the Xbox 360.