Beefjack: Natal and Sony's Motion Controller: Does Timing Matter?

Beefjack Writes: Microsoft's Project Natal and Sony's Motion Controller are both coming in the foreseeable future. Releasing a new technology for consoles is almost always met with fanfare, and with revolutionary developments like these, it is understandable that there is a lot of hype. Sony's Motion Controller will be coming out of the gate first this fall, and faces a few pitfalls to go along with its envious time slot. Project Natal, on the other hand faces the disadvantage of following during the Holidays, but despite its second place release finish, it boasts a few advantages. In the end though, it seems safe to wonder if such a small distance of time will really matter in the large scheme of things. In fact, does release timing matter at all?

[nkakolowski]

I think Natal could be in a bit of trouble in the overall scheme as the 360 is beginning to show its age, while the PS3 is starting to come into its own. It also doesn't help that most 1st party 360 games also come to the PC with better production values at this point. That doesn't prevent Natal from doing well, but I think people may grow tired of the 360's limitations, and not bother with Natal.

[THE MAX SPEED 21]

PS2's release date was in 2000 and the ps3 got out in 2007. PS2 is still getting alot of support as we speak. till 2007 nobody got tired of the PS2's tech.
So I dont see why it would be different with the xbox360. The xbox is on it's 5th year of existance so it still got about "2years" till a new console get's released.In the 2010-2011 year we'll see some games using new engines like the one used in crysis2(which looks good) so you know the xbox360 still got some power in it because it looks better than a great number of older games and with natal you just know the lifespan will be much longer if they do everthing right.

[Halfofme]

I don't know where all this talk of PS3 lasting another ten years is coming from. The PS2 lasted not because of the fact developers couldn't program for it, but because they could. Natal will extend the 360's lifespan yes, but not much more than the console would do on its own.

[Godmars290]

If MS promises a ton of things Natal can do like the hands-free UI and that's not ready day-one, they can't do better than Wii carnival titles at launch, then its going to crash and burn.

Same with the PS3's wand. Thought they can probably get away with a lightsaber game.

[THE MAX SPEED 21]

"Sony’s relative lack of third party support this generation won’t help either."

homeboy still stuck in 07.

[Halfofme]

Yeah you are.

[THE MAX SPEED 21]

Are you stupid or are you Just stupid?

you just said "yeah you are" to my comment. Did you read it good?

How would I be stuck in 07 When my comment is using parentheses "" Quoting a phrase from the article about the guy saying that Sony isnt getting support from 3rd party Devs ? hence me saying that he must be stuck in 07.

Which would mean that I dont agree with him saying that because Sony been getting alot of support from 3rd party devs since 2008.

Get your mind right.

EDIT: Ok I get it . You're just slow and dont understand the use of parentheses. Dont worry you'll get there.

[Halfofme]

Oh I get it, yeah you are.

EDIT:Good you get it, you are.

[Godmars290]

The quality of what they deliver is.

Every 3rd party dev could be making a Natal game, but like I said before if all those games are Wii carnival clones then what real worth are they.

Consequently, if the lightsaber game was the only one to come out for the PS3 wand, used all of the PS3's abilities where 360/Natal titles will be hampered, then who's going to have the better game?

[PandemicPrawn0]

A lightsaber/Jedi game would be the holy grail of motion control games.

I think both Natal and the PS wand have advantages for such a game , the wand would naturally lend itself well to lightsaber combat while Natal would work better for the use of force powers.

But to stay on topic: I think Sony are right to release their product first, or maybe Microsoft are right to release later? I don’t know.

Sony probably need to get out the gate fast with this thing and put as much distance between the wand and the mega hype steamroller that will be Natal.

I see they have 10 or 11 games announced for the wand already. That’s great because we haven’t really had one game title announcement from Microsoft for Natal ( except Fable 3 but I don’t know if that’s been confirmed yet).

I expect that to change after the X10 expo later in the month.

It’s going to be interesting how this plays out. I get the feeling that Sony are not sure if this things going to take off or not. Microsoft on the other hand seem to be of the opinion that they will MAKE Natal a success by sheer hardheadedness and a “beat you over the head” marketing campaign.

[Cyrus365]

Timing is everything, but I dunno accessories never have huge uptake, I'm curious what's the uptake on the Wii's motion plus with Nintendo's 60 million plus wii users?

And that's packed in with a bunch of games too...