if you had to judge just from first glance alone which motion system was the most advanced, natal would win hands down. try to predict what games will be like in the future and you can imagine being immersed in some sort of totally convincing virtual reality where you literally are the character in the game, and at this point natal is the closest to that experience.

problem is, natal isn't nearly advanced enough to make that happen yet. the first problem is that by ditching a controller you also ditch any truly accurate ability to capture motion. the full 1:1 that's been demonstrated by nintendo and sony's gyroscopes, where you can raise a sword above your head and behind your back or twirl an object in your hand, isn't possible with a camera alone. with a lack of any hard data coming from a controller, natal's experience is by necessity going to be a simpler one based off of more basic gestures.

so you trade the amazing 1:1 we've seen already for a dumbed down version that can't register motion as accurately, with the advantage being that you simply get more of your body involved. it's going to take a lot of work for that camera to decode every motion you're making with different parts of your body at once just to get movements like punching and kicking to register, and if the results are even halfway decent you can consider it a great victory for natal. who knows how it'll do monitoring 4 players at once, and if you're not 13 feet away (which will be the case for the majority of players) the camera has an even harder time.

another problem: no pointer function. the wiimote's IR pointer has gotten unanimous praise for being the next step forward for shooting games, and now sony can offer the same. unless natal can magically let you point your finger at the screen and shoot bad guys, this is one big feature it's missing.

these are some of the reasons nintendo passed on the technology. and yes, nintendo did consider this very system and rejected it: don't believe me? check wikipedia-

"Nintendo was offered the chance to retain the technology that will end up powering Microsoft's Project Natal, but denied the opportunity.

Quoted at ComputerAndVideoGames.com, the source said the Israeli company with a professor by the name of Zack Rosenberg told reporters that he invented the 3D camera-powered motion recognition system and demonstrated it to Nintendo executives (including Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata) in 2007. Iwata was reportedly impressed, but turned it down, only for Microsoft to snag it the following year.

"3DV showed off a camera that detected motion in 3D, and had voice recognition," the unnamed source told CVG. "But Iwata-san was unconvinced he could sell it at a Nintendo price point. He also had some worries around latency during gameplay... I've heard Iwata describe the prototype he saw at length, and it's definitely Natal."

there's microsoft's innovative camera. i'm not skeptical of it because i like nintendo, i'm skeptical of it because i know that microsoft picked it up just because it looks impressive. it's a buggy and flawed system that didn't perform well enough for the other companies to take seriously, but microsoft doesn't care about how well it works. they're interested in that 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing reaction it gets from people who don't understand that it's not a step forward from nintendo and sony, but a step back. here's the biggest kick in the pants for natal: sony's system has a camera too.

this makes me feel better:
_
“It’s inevitable that people would say this is Wii on PS3. But we see it as a complimentary product. It’s a different proposition. And let’s not forget, we’ve been in this space before with EyeToy and all the rest of it. There are learnings there. It’s not alien territory for us but we need to educate people about the potential that it has.” - Sony UK PR boss David Wilson

“Wii was deliberately pick up and play. We completely understand that and, let’s be honest, they’ve done a superb job. I think with Move it’s all about appealing to skill. It’s about the learning curve that’s built into the experience. It provides that satisfaction you’re talking about. The more you play the better you get. That’s part and parcel of the traditional gaming experience.” - Sales director Mark Howsen_

this honest approach is a lot better than the "it's a revolutionary new device" crap from last year.

The "revolution" set in motion by the Wii was never really about some technological breakthrough in motion control; it was simply a matter of rethinking the role of games in the living room and for different demographics. Even more central than the actual motion tech was the idea that you now just pick up a remote--more or less like all the others for your TV--and start up a game with ease, pointing to select things, and making simple gestures for gameplay that anyone can understand. It was about taking gaming out of its increasingly niche customer base and making it a more open and social event in which anyone can compete.

I believe Sony and Microsoft are perfectly capable of creating much more impressive motion tech, but I'm not quite sure that they grasp the bigger picture, if they truly intend to do what Nintendo did and expand their user base or change their image. That's not necessarily a problem, it's just a tremendous difference between the companies that no motion tech will be able to bridge.

Nintendo will continue to innovate and push new ideas, while Sony and MS will continue to copy those ideas and try to better them. Don't mess with Nintendo R & D! But yep....The 3DS will be revealed in a few weeks, can't wait! And hopefully it's true that Nintendo will be releasing those Wii Remotes with MotionPlus built inside. A Wireless Nunchuck would be the icing on the cake

pointer RE5? so it will be the THIRD release of the same game... i feel sad for the owners

could be an update as well.

Great post! XD

It has been confirmed that it will be an update.

Also, the second release of the game was just the game bundled with the DLC, so get off your high horse, vonseux.

Natal will flop due to not being as active as portrayed..

both natal and the move are crap. ill stick to my wii for motion and ps3 for motionless gaming!

Post # 2 - xbox doesnt use bluetooth.

Post #3 - i like this waltzelf guy, he tells these fanboys what he has to say.

i agree. natal will fail so bad. Did you see any of the demos last year. (boom there it is). also natal is going to be $200 apparently. with all of the costs of the xbox (system $300, wireless receiver $100 XBL $50 Natal $200) your total will be $650. i doubt anyone will want to pay for that. and your right about the not having a controller part. Also we all have proof that this will fail because of the fate of the eye toy. So what it if works better, people didn't like the concept of the eye toy. Also i would hate jumping up and down and flailing my arms around in front of my tv so it would register. I would rather have a controller. Also you need buttons for some things, like shooting. a camera cant pick up and decode you moving your finger as if you were pulling a trigger.

...sorry for my bad grammar, i rushed this

Initial impressions of the Sony Move for me have been that Sony is doing a little bit of "Hey, look at me too". However, the biggest apparent advantage is that the Move is 1:1. The wiimote with motion + is close, but not quite. Still, I don't know how successful the device will be this late in the game. It's hard to see it gaining a lot of momentum. The on-stage demos were definitely impressive.

You do know part of the reason they were copying Nintendo is the fact that they were partnered around that time (or something like that)

browsing though controller stuff on amazon and saw this on the listing for the move controller:

still strikes me as funny. they had been veering back and forth between the "no one's seen anything like this before!" and "yeah, it's a rip off, but we did it better". now it seems like the marketing is stuck squarely on the former, which is unfortunate; it's kind of hard to present it as something radically new when you don't change the gameplay or motion controls in any way. hell, they didn't even change the targets.

but hey, only a few more days before it's release? i didn't realize it was coming out so soon. we'll find out if people take to it or not next week.

I highly, highly disagree with the initial statement. Granted, even if it were true, I still wouldn't care. I had my fill of motion controls on the Wii. Now I just want games to go back to the tried and true.

also, i didn't know this before but apparently the subcontroller (now called navigation controller) has no motion sensing capabilities- no accelerometer or anything. it's just meant to be a more convenient option than using a normal dual shock in your left hand, which you can apparently still do.

i was ready to give sony credit for making their nunchuck wireless, since it really is the only logical choice with motion controls, but considering how unnecessary the thing is i'd rather stick with a dual shock in the left hand and save the $30.

LOL. Very amusing.

I have no interest in Playstation Move, other than the opinion that the controller looks ridiculous.

Natal ha(d) potential, but ultimately, it won't be as successful as the Wii (or even Move).

The thing I've seen with Natal are quick minigames and Party games (as well as those creepy yet cool simulators).

Less I see games like Banjo or Perfect Dark being played- you know, FULL games.. Traditional games, then I don't see Kinect going far. Plus, MS doesn't even DEVELOP their games. I doubt anyone can name at least 10 games developed by MS on the 360- and namely SUCCESSFUL. MS is too busy throwing money at developers to get exclusivity and junk while Nintendo and Sony are funding their many studios; the latter of which has ALOT of.

Point is, MS relies too much on the OUTSIDE to make their products successful (in terms of the 360). That's the thing people ALWAYS miss and are blinded to see. 3rd Parties aren't the ones who should be making your product successful but your studios, 2nd Parties and YOURSELF should.

Kinect is going to bite them in the rear.... soon :/

Motion Control to Video Games is what 3-D is to Movies.

I see what you did there.