Want Project Natal? It may cost you.
A big part of Microsoft’s ‘Open House’ event in New York
today was to pimp the holiday games and updates for the Xbox 360 due in the
coming months. But the most interesting nuggets came from a roundtable
discussion with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment &
devices division.
Here are a few notable comments on the possible projects in the queue for the company’s games unit:
- Start saving now for Project Natal. Bach says the new control peripheral for the Xbox 360 will mirror that of the console itself – start high, then slowly work its way down. “Relative to Natal, we’ll see how the pricing cost works out,” he said. “But people should except that it will go through the usual price curve.”
- Asked when we’ll be able to stop referring to the device by its code name ‘Natal’ Bach jokingly answered “When we tell you to call it something else.”
- Microsoft has been touting the synergy between the Xbox 360 and Zune HD when it comes to video, but there are only a couple of older Xbox games coming out for the personal media player. Can we expect more? Bach wasn’t willing to commit: “We’ll decide how w we want to evolve [the Zune HD] and how it plays into our mobile strategy platform later.”
“So in the gaming space, you need to make a fork in the road decision on whether you’re going to do a portable device or focus on phones. The way technology is advancing with phones, [they are] going to be a very strong platform. The only thing holding it back today is battery life.”
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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Natal project cost is out of reach for me, But thanks for sharing this kinda information.
Posted by: R4 DS | October 10, 2009 at 12:03 AM
I always think the xbox is not good as PS3, but the games from Microsoft is a little better than sony. Anyway Microsoft is stronger in software but sony stronger in hardware.
Posted by: Oliver | October 09, 2009 at 08:42 PM
Natal is just press-bait, no core gamer is going to care, and MSFT has no clue how to market to the super-casual. The Japanese devs won't give a crap (unless paid to) and therefore no fun cute/quirky character-based games to build franchises around.
The main value of Natal seems to be to keep MSFT relevant in the press for the next year or two while they stoke them up with horribly fake marketing videos featuring the cast of the Benetton ads.
Any developer with an email account has probably been bombarded by their recruiting efforts to build a first-party Natal studio. They'll need it...
Whatever 3rd party dev support they get/buy now is going to be looking for the abort button even faster than 3rd party devs have fled the Wii.
Except since there is no controller, there will be no abort button.
Posted by: Robert | October 08, 2009 at 09:32 AM
The $400 comment I believe was more in reference to whether there will be a new iteration of the Xbox, and doesn't bear as much on Natal's price.
I don't see Natal being priced more than $180 at launch, mostly because it's hard to see them making this accessory more expensive than the console itself.
Posted by: KEM | October 08, 2009 at 08:56 AM
It will probably cost around 200-300$. How do I know?
Phil Spencer from Microsoft: "Consumers don’t want another $400 box right now…"
His interview: http://prnatal.com/blog/?p=103
Posted by: PrNatal | October 07, 2009 at 11:54 PM
Nothing more than mark ups by Microsoft the original zcam tech they bought which became Natal was to go on sale for around $100 for the motion camera.
It will fail, hardcore gamers wont buy it at a higher price and unless the bundle it with the console they will not attract the casual crowd.
Posted by: Dapper | October 07, 2009 at 05:00 AM