GIGOOriginally Posted by Fursphere
But seriously, Natal promises a bunch of stuff that there is no way they will be able to produce. People have been working on components of what they promised for decades and there are serious limitations which there is no way MS can overcome in the next year without somehow discovering a portal to the future. Oh, all of the features can be done, and done using free open-source code and cheap off-the-shelf parts. But there are major gotchas regarding accuracy and responsiveness. Major "oh by the way this only works in bright light and when you're standing really close" issues with the parts based on visual-wavelength cameras. Will it work anything like in the demonstration any time in the near future? Hell no, and they're idiots to oversell what could otherwise be a rather interesting product.
I know a way to implement the Sony ping-pong controller, but you need to be within about a meter of a sensor. Oh, and it involves shooting decent intensity lasers around, which could be a complication. Well, you can do it in video too, but then your registration quality goes down sharply (tracking accuracy and responsiveness go to hell) and you get the "bright light only, while standing fairly close to sensor" gotchas again.
I will be a little shocked if neither ends up vaporware. I will be extremely shocked if they manage to pull off something that has any market potential past the initial hype-driven sales and doesn't end up in the garage after the first month of ownership. Why? Not because the tech lacks gaming potential. It has awesome potential for use in games. It's because they're letting their marketing people sell things without talking to their engineers again.
Which, sadly, happens all the damn time. See also: Dilbert.
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