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Speaking to a room full of executives focused on "the business of online video" at this year's Streaming Media West trade show, it's easy to understand how Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten could fall into hyperbole regarding the implications of Project Natal. "I believe that this will be the largest leap of TV experience since the remote control," Whitten said on the subject, reports Yahoo Tech. "With the flick of my wrist I can change a channel ... with the power of my voice I can start a movie."

Aside from the more obvious implications to television using technology that can interpret voice and motion, he sees a future where Natal will recognize individual voices in a room and allow for a variety of human input – from "laughter" to "the number of people in a room" and everything in between. "Watching a movie is a passive input, but a TV should understand what you're trying to do." We don't know about you, Marc, but we're a bit worried about the implications of our television understanding what some of us are trying to do.

[Via Edge]

While reports circulated last week that Project Natal would launch sometime in November 2010, Xbox UK boss Neil Thompson says the details were only rumors. Speaking with Eurogamer at a launch event in London for the console's new social media applications, Thompson said the rumors "weren't accurate" and claimed Microsoft has yet to determine "a lot of things" related to the launch of its new motion-sensing technology.

According to the rumors, Microsoft was set to ship around five million Project Natal units next fall, alongside 14 supporting titles at a price point that could go as low as $50 (£30). When asked about the rumored details and price, Xbox's head of Europe, Chris Lewis, jokingly added, "Now you know better than to listen to that stuff! We will announce in good time."

However, Lewis did remind Eurogamer that Microsoft is striving for "unique" and "compelling" experiences with the technology. "That has to happen and will happen," he said. As long as whatever "happens" doesn't follow Microsoft's traditional Xbox 360 peripheral pricing scheme, we'll be happy.

Sitting on Time Magazine's 50 Best Inventions of 2009 amongst notables like the world's first AIDS vaccine (still in trials) and meat farms seems like an awkward place for Microsoft's Project Natal. But that's exactly where it resides, paired with glowing praise for its boundary-breaking implications.

"Since time immemorial ... one barrier that has stood between gamers and total Tron-like immersion in their video games has been the controller," the piece posits, going on to say that Natal will break that barrier by allowing the player one-to-one access between the game and the game's controls. "You move your hand, and the Master Chief (or whoever) moves his hand. It's that simple. And that cool." Though we're excited for the many prospects Project Natal seems to offer, we're a bit more intrigued by teleportation.

And yes, that's seriously on the list.

Wait a minute. Now we're confused. We thought one of the major development incentives for joining the motion revolution was to conserve resources in the production department. When your players are busy flailing and flapping -- surging with euphoric endorphins -- they don't exactly notice that you've scaled back on the fancy schmancy rendering and physics; all that excessive cutting edge tech. Heck, they'd barely notice if you repurposed and resold them a game you'd made 5 years ago.

Motion control, man, it's about getting back to our roots -- a simpler time -- when games were, like, about connecting with our bodies, you know? So when we caught wind of a job opportunity posted by Ghostbusters developer Terminal Reality and calling for experienced Xbox Live programmers to create "an exciting AAA Natal title," we were sorta like, whoa, guys, you're kinda missing the point.

Check this: "If you have a passion to create seriously high-quality action/adventure titles, we're interested in hearing from you!" Really ... passion? That makes it sound like there will be sweat involved -- that's the players' job now. You guys gotta dial it down, maybe dig up some of that old BloodRayne code, put a little "kick-punch-slap" control in there ... Save. Press. Box. Ship. Done.

[Via Shogun Gamer; thanks, Ian]

Shocking absolutely no one, Peter Molyneux has confirmed that Fable 3 will support Project Natal in some fashion. The confirmation came during a lecture at BAFTA in London. The news was confirmed by Eurogamer's Johnny Minkley, who tweeted the info during the event itself. Molyneux also reportedly showed off Milo and proved that Natal is capable of scanning objects (people, presumably) in bad lighting.

Molyneux himself hinted at the possible inclusion of Natal in Fable 3 as recently as two weeks ago, though he neglected to confirm it for fear of a quick, sniper-borne death.

So that's that then: Fable 3 will use Project Natal. Of course, we don't speak for everyone, but we can't wait to pretend to fart in front of a crowd of adoring, virtual townsfolk.

[Via VG247]

Over at IndustryGamers, everyone's favorite video game predicterer (we're still working on that one) Michael Pachter has taken the reigns of the site and offers his own extensive diatribe on the future of Sony and Microsoft's upcoming new tech: Project Natal and the PlayStation Motion Controller (rumored to be called Sphere). Pachter's assertion is that price will be Natal's biggest selling point and Microsoft will try to expand upon its market of established Xbox 360 owners by offering the device for $50. For Sony's doodad, Pachter says the company is "trying to create an answer to the success of the Wii."

Pachter even likens the future state of a Natal-enabled Xbox 360 to the current state of the iPhone -- with features like Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm and Facebook inside Microsoft's box and its intuitive interface, he says casual or non-playing members of Xbox 360 households will become interested. And then when it's bundled with all new Xbox 360s, he says that'll expand Microsoft's reach even more.

For the motion-controlled competition, Pachter says he'd be surprised if Sony's asking price was over $100, and stresses that both Microsoft and Sony need to keep "the consumer's cost relatively low in order to achieve broad penetration."

[Update: Corrected Pachter's belief that the motion controller would be no more than $100. We sincerely apologize for the misinterpretation and the consequent misinformation.]

While we may be nervous about Microsoft's Project Natal branding strategy -- remember, that's just a codename -- the suits in Redmond share no such concern. That's because the Natal project is following Nintendo's lead in more ways than just easy-to-play, motion-based technology. It's also following Nintendo's branding strategy.

On May 11, 2004 Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced the "Nintendo Revolution" to the E3 audience and, while he didn't show off the motion-based controller (we wouldn't see that for another sixteen months, at TGS 2005), he did promise "an unprecedented gameplay experience." The Revolution would offer "something no other machine has delivered before." The following May, over two years after first announcing the "Revolution," Nintendo revealed the product's final name just before E3: Wii.

When we asked Microsoft's Robbie Bach, "When can we stop calling it Natal?" at a recent Open House event, the exec wasn't shy about comparing the company's strategy to Nintendo's. "When Nintendo came out with the name 'Wii,' people sort of said 'Oh gosh, that's kind of a goofy, weird name.' I haven't heard a comment about it being a goofy name since the week after they announced the name," Bach said. "And suddenly, people just called it the 'Wii' and moved on." And, specifically, they've moved on to buying them en masse.

Terence Lee, creator of Storm, joins the growing list of independent game developers lucky enough to find a publisher. His game, created specifically for an independent games competition at 2BeeGames.com, will find refuge on PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, WiiWare and iPhone next year via a new publishing deal announced by Zoo Games. We talked with Lee about the indie games scene, and what we can expect from the console version.

What is Storm? How did the concept come about?
Storm is a game where you use weather elements, like wind, rain, and lightning, to solve physics puzzles. I had been playing around with some physics sandbox games, like Garry's Mod, and I found that these games were all based on experimenting with mechanical interactions. I wondered if an organic style could also be fun. And what's more organic than a storm? Plus storms bring lightning and every game needs explosions.

Speaking to Destructoid, Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda had some bad news for gamers hoping to see old Xbox 360 game updated with Natal controls. The Natal team has been able to effectively implement motion controls in older titles -- like Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme -- but Tsunoda intimated that it required large portions of code to be changed. According to Tsunoda, it's not something that developers could easily patch into older titles. In other words, if you want your favorite pre-Natal title to support motion control, you'll have to hope for a full-fledged re-release from the publisher.

That's definitely a blow for those hoping to enjoy some of their favorite games with motion control, especially considering Sony can patch motion control into older PS3 titles. Here's hoping Namco sees the light and releases Beautiful Natal-amari once Project Natal hits retail shelves.

Explaining Project Natal's mantra of fun and accessibility can't be the easiest task in the world, especially since it has to be done while ricocheting about in front of a motion-detecting camera. And despite that, creative director Kudo Tsunoda makes it look easy, calmly elaborating on Natal's goals and features while he dances about in a room full of journalists.

We've heard it before: Natal is Microsoft's sledgehammer, swung straight into the walls that years of button pressing and circle strafing have slowly erected around traditional gaming. We've seen similar attacks from Nintendo's Wii, as well as from the massive genre of the Instrument Protagonist, but Microsoft is hoping for much more than a dent. In the wall. Do you get it? It's like a metaphor and stuff.

The bizarre problem with Natal in its early state is that it, um, works. The technology is clearly functional -- heck, it's vaguely magical -- which makes the absence of truly compelling software almost immediately disappointing. Anyone can simply hop in front of the camera, which never seems to stop and ask, "Who are you and where did you come from -- and why are you so fat compared to the last person?" You're recognized within seconds and can start playing a moment later. And then you slap flying balls.

It's a bit of an unfair demand considering the product's not due until 2010, but the impatience is testament to the convincing nature of the technology itself. In the meantime, Microsoft is exploring Natal's tricks in two existing games: Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme.

Dubbed a "public brainstorming session" in a sorry-I-couldn't-make-it introductory video from Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business VP, Don Mattrick, the Xbox 360 Creator Discussion Panel saw three esteemed Japanese game developers share their dreams and designs for Project Natal.

It was immediately noted that no ideas or concepts -- erupting from Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), Keiji Inafune (Mega Man, Dead Rising) and Toshihiro Nagoshi (Monkey Ball, Yakuza) -- should be considered actual, in-development concepts. Which is just as well, because it didn't take long for the trio to joke about a motion-enabled female feel-'em-up (see above gesture for context).

Keiji Inafune was the one to bring it up, noting that the evolution of controllers was "way behind the evolution of graphics." According to Inafune, "Body language is part of this important evolution. With Natal we can involve ourselves. I'm getting really excited and show it in my body or action. Instead of pressing the button, it can be truly immersive experience."

Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president, Phil Spencer, doesn't seem like the easily startled type. In fact, on the list of things that wouldn't catch him off guard, the incorporation of Project Natal into a high-profile, Xbox 360-exclusive franchise probably doesn't sit very high. Perhaps a few spots below lots of people buying a new Halo game.

During a Tokyo Game Show interview (look for the full transcript soon), Spencer told Joystiq that the innovation fostered inside Lionhead Studios made it a good match for Microsoft's forthcoming motion control system. "You know, Lionhead's been a real innovation studio for us," he said. "We have the release of Fable 2 episodic this week, where they're taking Fable 2 and breaking it up into chunks, allowing people to buy the content at their pace. Fable 2, I thought, was a great release, with the orbs they added with Live, adding new functionality to the franchise. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Natal found its way into future iterations of Fable."

Whether or not motion functionality will show up in 2010's Fable 3 is a matter of speculation, though your role as king in that game would certainly lend itself to some interesting ... regal maneuvers. Waving your hand to permanently dispense with an annoying peasant? That's our kind of role playing.

The new motion controllers for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are likely to make big appearances at this year's Tokyo Game Show. While both Microsoft and Sony are attempting to take away some of Nintendo's mindshare with its new controllers, Square Enix head Yoichi Wada believes neither company will be truly successful. "Present game machines already have a lot of functions: they are a network terminal, a Blu-ray or DVD player, and a gaming machine. Compared to these three pillars, the [new motion] controllers are quite limited, so the impact may be small," Wada told the Financial Times.

Wada also believes that the three platforms will start looking more like each other by the year 2011, when he believes Nintendo will release the fabled successor of the Wii. The system will add features found on the PS3/360, and may also introduce a brand new controller. It'll certainly be interesting to see what moves consumers when an HD Nintendo system exists concurrently with motion-enabled Microsoft and Sony systems.

In a March 2008 interview with GamersGlobal, renowned designer Peter Molyneux divulged few details on "Dimitri," an "experimental thing" which he claimed was given life by a mysterious discovery. "And then it moved from that experiment to a moment in time that happened six months ago when a discovery was made, and this discovery has been so exciting that it has lead to Lionhead focusing on it and sculpting a game around that," he said at the time. "I think that discovery is so significant ... This discovery has lead us to start a game and that game will be on the front cover of Nature magazines and Science magazines."

According to Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer, the discovery was actually "the right platform for an ambitious software idea" -- namely Project Natal, Microsoft's forthcoming motion control system for the Xbox 360. "Peter [Molyneux] and I saw the first [Natal] prototype about 2 years ago," Spencer recently told Develop. "He focused on what people want to do in this environment, and that's where a project of Lionhead's, called Dimitri, become Milo – the team's previous idea took on a whole new lease of life with Natal."

Now that we've become acquainted with "Dimitri" in his new, boyish form, we can lay the old codeword to rest and attempt to discern the reality within Molyneux's enthusiastic words. Though we're undecided on Milo's future as a Popular Mechanics cover model, we're fairly confident he'll wind up on Game Informer sooner or later. Shall we file this under Molyknew or Molyno?

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Halo 3: ODST producer Alex Cutting said that the Halo series will only incorporate Microsoft's motion-sensing Natal "when it makes sense." Cutting noted, "We're going to make the games we want to play," adding that the company "will definitely investigate it," though he didn't elaborate on any plans Bungie might have.

Regarding the feasibility of Natal control for first-person shooter, Cutting says that many doubted console FPS play before the advent of dual analog sticks. In other words, there's room to see controls evolve again. Cutting concluded that he wouldn't "bet against" Natal, saying, "There is a lot that can be done with it."

Joystiq readers will recall that Bungie boss Harold Ryon stated earlier this year that he "absolutely" thought Natal could work in Halo: Reach. Given Reach's likely proximity to the Natal launch, and Halo's massive following, we don't think it's reaching too far to assume it will incorporate the device in some way.