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Project Natal Release Details Emerge
scruffybr writes "Today the first information about the pricing and launch of Microsoft’s Project Natal has emerged. The pricing for the hardware will be much much lower than many had anticipated, coming in at around £50 when sold separately from the console. The idea being that it’s low enough that people will purchase on impulse."
First post, and I think the news is just fantastic, a low price on a hot item for the holidays. Can you say doorbuster? Pick up a xbox 360 with some older games now, and next year get the kids Natal.
Wow... hope that's all true because then I'd consider getting one.
For the confused: Project Natal (per Wikipedia).
*sigh* And I still recall when I thought having a plastic gun for Duck Hunt was cutting edge.
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The video disclaimer says that this is the "product vision". Are there videos of the actual product itself in use?
If its that low, Natal actually has a real chance of making a dent in their user base. Addon peripherals are always risky and usually end in less than stellar support but this sounds cheap enough to be bundled not only with the console but with hot titles much like Sony has done with Singstar and the Mics or Eyepets with the camera.
There are already 14 development studios confirmed to be working on natal titles, including Lionhead, Rare, Activision Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, Capcom, Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Konami, MTV Games, Namco Bandai, Sega, Square Enix, THQ and Ubisoft. Not a bad lineup for a peripheral, sounds more like a console lauch than a peripheral introduction.
...originally broken by MCV: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36466/Natal-launch-details-leak-from-secret-Microsoft-tour
Yeah, 7 comments and nobody has mentioned that this is just speculation from some "tip" heard by mcvuk web page (which is down right now) and that pretty much all game news sites have been running?.
I'll believe it when I see it.
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Pfft. Real people use beans.
Who spends $83 dollars on impulse buys?
Colbert said it best.
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Overtaking Apple (and their yesterday's news [badly suppressed yawn] no-button Magic Mouse) in the inner lane is ... Microsoft with their no-mouse-mouse!
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... coming in at around £50 when sold separately from the console. The idea being that it’s low enough that people will purchase on impulse.
Maybe I am just a cheapskate...but isn't 50 pounds a little above the 'impulse buy' margin? Usually impulse buys for me run in the arena of $20.00 or less. 50 pounds converts to, according to google, $83.27. That's approaching that dreaded $100.00 limit. When I am walking through wal-mart stocking up on whatever I need, I rarely, if ever, see an $80.00 item and say, "Ooooh I need that!" and throw it in the cart. That's a week and a half's worth of groceries... I don't know, maybe I am the exception to the rule, but I think 50 pounds is a little on the high side to term it an 'impulse buy.'
And yes, people can fill in all the snarky responses about, "Oh, well, since YOU wouldn't spend the money I guess NOONE would...its not like anyone else has DIFFERENT buying habits..." and so on. I am not trying to say that nobody will fork over eighty bucks for the Natal, but it just seems a little high to be deemed an impulse buy type item...I mean hell, I won't even impulse buy new release games that I am excited about and they retail for $60.00.
But like I said, maybe I am just a cheapskate.
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When I first saw this "Natal" thing, I was confused, and I still am. Unlike the Playstation 3 controller announced around the same time which was a bulb on a stick that controls things on screen when you move it, I remain clueless about what Natal actually does.
The marketing video when it was announced was a human having a scripted embarrasing conversation with a computer animation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8077369.stm (second video on the article)
Are there any videos of Natal doing something obviously interesting?
at that price it could be 3000 USD by the time it comes out...
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And another site bites the slashdot "Connection has timed out" error!
Yay for us.....
Reminds me of the Wii that supposedly had plenty of developers on board to make new and exciting games for the then-revolutionary wiimote... we all know how that turned out.
one of the funny things in the natal tech demos i've seen on youtube is how one of the presenters takes cheap shots at the wii's "waggling" of the remote and how stupid and silly blah blah blah... and then watching them arm-waving and making awkward poses to "draw" an elephant (pretty silly IMO) i wonder how much different natal is going to be.
Not that much, judging by the demos i've seen so far. Hope i'm wrong, though.
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Your right, nothing is confirmed but the number of 3rd party prominent players hyping things up on their own kind of assures me that there is at least some substance there. Wii Fit and Motion Plus are great examples and I think your on to something...MS probably does need to bundle in some sort of game likely a mini-game collection similar to wii sports, even the kickball demo and that Milo thing would do...just something that gives you a "natal" experience out of the box. Im expecting game bundles from MS first party studios, perhaps Lionhead or Rare offering up a Perfect Dark or Fable bundle? Of course if Halo Reach ends up with Natal support and ships as a bundle they are guaranteed millions of installs off the bat.
demo with kid on the dock. I hope it lets me shove him off the docks and into the pond.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
How much extra is it to get that freakishly realistic british kid from the demo to start bitching at me in british-ese? lol. It's just not Natal without AI characters talking to you and throwing CG balls at your head :P Oh and how much extra would it be to make him stop talking like the girl from Resident Evil and actually speak American english so we can understand him and also not feel like there's zombies behind us.
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Where the f*** is the slashdotted tag
Your TV with a camera. They should build one into an LCD TV next, and give it a catchy name like Telescreen.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
would not look at phone, cable/sat, etc, contracts the same way.
I know people paying more per month for cell or tv service than this device costs! It is all about context. To some of us $100 is impulse, to others its "do I eat" or can I put it on lay away, and to some its a "tip".
This is a great price in the realm of video controllers, let alone the possibilities it opens up. Think of it as the razor, they will get you on the blades (games)
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Most normal people would consider that sort of money a fairly large purchase.
I don't think 360 fanboys have any idea how much dominance the Wii has in the marketplace.
Put it this way
- Nintendo sells the same amount Wii consoles every month than ALL OTHER HOME CONSOLES COMBINED - that includes the 360, the PS3, the PS2.
- This trend has been the same for pretty much the lifetime of the console, which means the Wii has sold over 20 MILLION more units than the 360.
- Unlike Microsoft, which still loses money on each 360 sale, Nintendo makes $6-$7 on each Wii sold, before anyone buys a single game.
Given all this and the massive profits the Wii continues to give to Nintendo, do you think they really care about Natal or other "Wii killers" ? They could stop selling consoles altogether and it would still take their competition two years to reach their market penetration, let alone profits. It's no different than Palm and Motorola and every other "iPhone killer" - it is totally irrelevant since the competition has such an overly dominant position in the marketplace, even if a superior competitor comes along, by the time it has reached any kind of penetration the dominant player can just squash them with something newer and better, because they have so much breathing room in the market to do so.
I haven't tried it.
But the demo videos at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/ strike me as extremely weird and creepy.
I play games on my Wii almost every day, and didn't have the same problem with it. Maybe it's just having used a physical controller for 30 years seeing people play without one at all strikes me as wrong.
Maybe it's that, while I'm comfortable with manipulating controllers I'm not comfortable with manipulating my body. Insert the standard nerd jokes here, but it's true: I'm not good at sports or exercise and tend to injure myself rather than getting better or more physically fit.
Setting my personal problems, who is going to get this that doesn't have a Wii already? If someone has neither a 360 nor a Wii, would this really make them pick the 360? I honestly can't picture someone who doesn't have a 360 or a Wii but will get a 360 now because of this thing at this stage of the game. I'm also having a hard time imagining a large number of people who have a 360 who will want this thing.
I just don't get it, at all, except as a yet another lame "me too" from Microsoft.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
"...we all know how that turned out."
If you mean being one of the most successful (and more importantly profitable) console in the past 10 years and current leader of it's console generation by a near FACTOR OF TWO, then yeah, I bet Microsoft hopes it does half that well.
In fact if it did half that well they would finally maybe start catching up with Nintendo's market share.
More than likley it will be cheaper here in the US. Based on pricing differences between regions for Microsoft Points, it's looking like about $55-$60. Those poor Europeans get hosed on conversion all the time. Blizzard and Valve are doing it with thier game stores treating dollars and euros as the same or closer in value than they really are.
There will be a short delay while Microsoft works toward establishing the same quality in this periphial as the base. They should reach the necessary >50% failure rate soon by replacing major components with with bamboo waste products.
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If M$ would stop selling a $30 wireless adapter for $100...
Why are you reporting a rumour as news?
Don't you actually research the tip before posting it?
It'd be nice if ANY of the duplicate-posted slashdot stories about Natal linked to a page that wasn't crushed or suspended, so I could find out WTF Natal is.
Ah, wait. I see a link up the page. AAAAND, it's something to do with gaming. OK, not interested.
I thought the Natal video looked very interesting. The mapping from the people moving to the screen was smooth.
I actually felt sorry for Sony when the guy in their video couldn't hit the ball. I thought it was fitting he finally got it (and really just barely) with a Stop sign. Now that was ironical.
You're not low UID until you hit five digits. In any case, all I would say is that if I can get it with a game for a hundred bucks, I'll buy it. And by that I mean, if I can get it with the game to have. Any worse deal than that, I would have to chew on carefully.
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my belly button for?!
Billy wants to penetrate it. Your butthole is too large for his micro-soft.
Will it make Rodney jump up off the page?
Costs more than a Wiimote + nunchuk, and you still have to find games that work with it. We'll see how well it does, it probably could do with a killer app.
Seems like it has a potential to be mighty useful for some pet projects, like robotics or general motion capture (for whatever reason...), and with a pleasently low price.
Of course the "custom processor running proprietary software" is a bit unfortunate, even if totally expected and undestandable. Who knows though what perversions we'll see in the protocol...
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Microsoft sells the hardware at a loss to try and steal another market. Unfortunately those days are over and it's just one more unprofitable venture for the bloated has-been.