Microsoft Takes Gaming Further with Natal

In 2002 Sony (SNE) brought us the Eyetoy peripheral but failed to capitalise on its potential. At the 2005 Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) revealed their Wii gesture interface that was probably the biggest ever single step change in video gaming. Now Microsoft (MSFT), after a long gestation, has taken both these ideas and developed them several steps further for the Xbox 360, adding voice control while they were at it.

If this works as well as portrayed in the video above then it will be little short of revolutionary, the imagination of game designers can take flight in limitless ways. Removing all control input limitations means gaming can go places we would never have dreamed of.

From a hardware point of view the change in abilities that this brings the Xbox 360 are so great that it is almost like they had launched a new console. But the upcoming Xbox 720 will still be on schedule; Moore’s Law (.pdf) and competitive pressure will make this inevitable.

And competitively, if Natal works as advertised, the Wii will be in severe trouble with its main party trick trumped. And the Playstation 3 is looking distinctly old generation with no gesture interface. All this could change over the next 48 hours as Nintendo and Sony make their E3 announcements. We live in interesting times.

Comments

[Zenfar:]

I prefer the name XBox 1080. Natal has the potential to leap frog Wii if it works. The Wii controller does not give out the most precise data, Natal can easily be that consistent, but from the look of the demo is much better.

Microsoft is way ahead in opening up the XBox to the community of gamers and developers. When you combine this with Natal, the aggressive pricing, they will take back the lead from Wii in overall consoles sold.

It would be interesting for Microsoft to sell an add-on to the X-Box instead of a whole new console. The add-on could contain memory and a new GPU (from Nvidia). Sell it for $99-$149, and have it make all games in 1080p / 60 Hz with physics.

Jun 02 09:52 AM

[mizzousteve21:]

Natal looks awesome! I wish I could have gone to the E3 conference because I love seeing all the new technologies that each company pumps out. Its seems like only yesterday the Wii came out now this technology appears to one up it.. I am all for the technology but some people think Microsoft is taking it too far. I couldnt believe what I was seeing as I watched this report: bit.ly/109RxI

Jun 02 04:09 PM