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"Natal" is Kinect for Xbox 360. Nov 4, No Price Yet, 15 Launch Titles [M-CONF]

C

charlequin

Banned
Natal is Kinect for Xbox 360. Releasing on November 4, its price is yet to be announced.

Kinect Launches This November
Kinect Interface For Content
Dance Central By Harmonix

2u8exlg.png


More information, videos, etc. to follow shortly, but for now here's a place to discuss the camera formerly known as Natal.
 
Honestly, that fitness demo was one of the most impressive things I thought they showed. It was a really great demo, I thought, and totally changed my mind.

I love that the 360 is finally getting some color as well.

Of course, it all depends on the price. If I can get a 360 with a decent sized hard drive and natal for $250, I'm probably going to jump in.
 
I didn't hear it directly but saw someone said Arron Greenberg said that it needs it's own power brick if you use older 360's(non-slim ones?). So...yeah. Wow.
So bad it's not funny. And 15 shovelware games at launch. No word man, no words. I actually had hope for this. I wanted it to work.
 
Im confused. Are Turn 10 releasing a entirely knew Kinect controlled Forza game? Or is it some kind of DLC extension to Forza 3?
 
I may wait on the Forza and Star Wars games before getting Kinect, I have a dog I take for a run each day, food for the damn dog is keeping me un-Kinected for now.
 
i wouldn't be surprised if their holding off on the price to see the reaction.

that dance game could sell shitloads if the thing is priced decently.

they need to allow uploading pics & videos to youtube and facebook from it and four players.

i'm surprised Ubisoft didn't just move 'just dance' over to work for it.
 
List of launch games aka shovelware hell...I only kinda wonder what's Adrenalin Misfits about...

Kinect Adventures (Microsoft Game Studios)
Kinectimals (Frontier Studio, Microsoft Game Studios)
Kinect Joy Ride (Big Park, Microsoft Game Studios
Kinect Sports (Rare, Microsoft Game Studios)
Dance Central (MTV Games)
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (Ubisoft)
EA SPORTS Active™ 2 (EA SPORTS)
DECA SPORTS FREEDOM (Hudson Entertainment)
Dance Masters (Konami)
Adrenalin Misfits (Konami)
Zumba Fitness (Majesco)
Sonic Free Riders (SEGA)
The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout (THQ)
Motion Sports (Ubisoft)
Game Party™: In Motion (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
 
Nicktals said:
Honestly, that fitness demo was one of the most impressive things.
Click to expand...

yup but it kinda worked as more of a tech demo than anything else.

it's the best yoga/fitness game out there right now though. i'll give it that.

also, am i wrong in assuming that kinect cannot do finger tracking/wrist tracking based on the 3d model we saw?
 
I think the lack of price means Pachter is dead on. There's a struggle within MS to determine a price for this. Half are saying price low, half are saying price high. It implies to me the low end is going to be $99 as some compromise point.

Really disappointing showing. I think my Mom might be into Your Shape though.
 
Some of my collected thoughts:

1. Nice branding. The added purple is very distinct and easily identifies Kinect games.

2. Launch games. I was genuinely impressed by the fact that Kinect is launching with 15 games - it really does help to establish the device as a new "console" in the way Microsoft talked about - until... I realised that three of them are exercise games, at least three of them are sports mini-game collections, and two of them are dance games. The most interesting and novel game seemed to be Kinectimals. Too little too late.

3. Price. The lack of a price seemed very telling. Even though Microsoft has dropped the price of an Arcade unit to $150, I'd be surprised if a Kinect bundle were anything less than $300.

Edit: Sorry, there are four fitness games at launch. It's ridiculous.
 
verbum said:
I may wait on the Forza and Star Wars games before getting Kinect, I have a dog I take for a run each day, food for the damn dog is keeping me un-Kinected for now.
Click to expand...

star war games = dragon quest swords + wii sports restor sword fighting - Nintendo
 
Four fitness games?

Two dance games?

Four variations of 'sports'?

Seriously?

This third party support is woefully narrow. I mean I don't think the biggest skeptic in the world could have come up with that mix. Shocking.
 
The only game showcased that I thought could potentially be a Kinect seller is the Fitness one. It was pretty damn impressive and if Kinect is priced competitively with the Wii Balance Board, I can see it selling.
 
Rubbish, they've just copied everything that's been done before. With this new technology, they should be coming up with new and exciting games that wasn't possible before, like Harmonix have done.
 
I think coming from a casual angle, it looked ok, but the only way to get this into houses is to convice the xbox crowd to jump aboard, and they didn't do that today.

I can see maybe buying some of those for my wife and daughter, but I think most of the Halo/CoD crowd couldn't care less. And the soccor moms picking this up for their younger families will just get a Wii instead.

Seems like a misstep from the word 'Go,' and the fact that they haven't announced a price....gonna be such a failure.
 
I am down with $99. The fitness game looked cool. I really enjoyed EA Active on Wii. I want to see how EA Active will look on the Kinect.

Anything approaching $150 would be too much for me.
 
Revolutionary said:
The only game showcased that I thought could potentially be a Kinect seller is the Fitness one. It was pretty damn impressive and if Kinect is priced competitively with the Wii Balance Board, I can see it selling.
Click to expand...

Not to suggest that you can't make any money on future exercise games ever, but both Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus have come and gone and sold, what, over 20 million units between them? Combined sales of all exercise games on the Wii nearing 30 million units, perhaps? That's an incredibly large audience that have already sunk money into a purchase, so Microsoft is going to have to be very competitive to get them to leave the Wii for a 360.
 
the most concerning thing to me was the level of input lag on display - watch the hurdles event again, there was a good second difference between the players movements and the actions onscreen.

I think even the most ardent defenders of natal wave kinetic kinect are feeling a bit underwhelmed about now.
 
The Harmonix Dance game was the only good thing about it. I liked Just Dance, but the game only tracked controller position/orientation, so full body tracking is welcome. Also, Just Dance had a weak tracklist and i trust Harmonix to have a better tracklist, and also more songs on Disc(Just Dance had like 30?). Also, Harmonix will offer DLC, which Just Dance never did.

Otherwise, the stuff they showed was weak IMO.
 
Synth_floyd said:
There was a pulled Gamestop website that listed it as $150.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/14/xbox-kinect-gets-priced-149/

:facepalm
Click to expand...

The fact MS didn't announce this means it was probably something they were planning to do, but then pulled it at the last minute.

Suggesting they're going to reconsider it. Which is about the only bullet they've dodged with this.

I still can't get over the third party stuff though. Natal was meant to be getting all this huge third party stuff. I literally thought I was seeing double (and triple..and quadruple..) looking at the titles on that slide.
 
So Natal/Kinect was set up to be this new tech breakthrough- hands free gaming, new experiences that you won't find with any other input device, etc.

What we get at launch? FOUR workout games, THREE sports games, a variety of casual "fun" games that don't offer all that much new outside of what we've already seen, and two dancing games.

Kinect tech might be solid, but until devs stop trying to fill the spaces up with Wii-ripoffs, it won't ever be worth the asking price. Which still hasn't been announced. Man, what a letdown.
 
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