Sounds like Microsoft has cut out the touted chip inside of Natal to get costs down, according to GI.biz. That essentially means the actual 360 will be doing the unit's calculations, rumoured to be taking up 10-15% of the console's processing power. What this all means to current development, I'm not sure, you'd have to assume developers would have been aware of this quite recently, but it certainly means the performance of Natal games will now take a hit next to the "standard" game, as the camera will require CPU to run. Also not sure what effect it will have when running on the dashboard.
 

it kind of sounds like natal is just hype from Microsoft. i'm sure they can fix the problems and get it working. maybe they can like make another chip that has processor that can work with both the 360 and the natal part. if they did then it might make the 360 even more powerful. i doubt they were would do something like that.

Oh, Natal has a 100ms lag?
 
That's pretty bad.

This is not that big a deal. A lot of xbox games don't even use the processors completely, microsoft wouldn't do something like that otherwise. 
 
And yeah I think some things could run better because the communication between the xbox and the natal cam would just be movements, it wouldn't waste time processing then sending them. 

WTF?! The 3DV chip was the main thing!
 
I'm not exactly interested in it now. Just curious.

" Oh, Natal has a 100ms lag?
 
That's pretty bad. "

Games nowadays don't take 100% adavantage of the processing power that the Xbox 360 has to offer. Its been said again and again that the game has been "fully maxed out" or utilized for the 360; but the next following year makes the games previously look outdated or poor.

" @get2sammyb: Well what I'm sayin' is that it took up till Oblivion was made till there was a game that actually used all three processing cores. Now, not all games have to make the retarded-crazy radiant AI stuff work, or process things THAT crazy. I mean more and more often, obviously, due to games just getting better and better, technically, but I really doubt the kindof games that would run with natal (so far not much shown, but back-modding Katamari and Burnout Paradise to run with natal has been done, and they're not the most processor intense games out there) would have really high processor requirements. It shouldn't be a huge detriment, and if it makes Natal cheaper and more accessible to everyone (more adoption rates, at least), then that's great for them, and all the fans of it. Hope it's not cast aside like the camera kinda was, or how the wii motion plus is a little ignored as of late. "

Hurry and die motion controls, hurry and just FUCKING DIE.

microsoft killed natal when they took the processor out.

I wonder how much of a price difference it is leaving or taking out the processor from the Natal unit.

I'd gladly pay more (assuming there are the games to back it up) for them to do it right. Natal lost quite a bit of potential in cutting back what can be done on the console in the process of trying to make it better. It's annoying because from a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense, but I still despise money getting in the way of progress every step of the way, as it seems to do.

" I wonder how much of a price difference it is leaving or taking out the processor from the Natal unit. "

The biggest software company in the world won't take a hit for the sake of it customers and sell Natal at a break even price regardless of its hardware, its shows how much they care doesn't it

Sounds like the decision to cut the chip and do software processing was a good one; reducing costs while keeping the response time low and getting that amount of processing done in only 15% of the Xboxes ageing processor seems like quite a engineering feat. If it means it won't work in existing games, who cares? No one wants this to play Burnout with - they want it so they can play dumb fun tennis games with their families.
 
If they get this down to a decent price point, get the marketing right and get it out in time for the holidays - I reckon this thing will probably be a huge hit this Christmas. 
Even if it's awful, even if most of us 'gamers' thing that body waggling is stupid and pointless - the mainstream appeal will probably do wonders for MS and the Xbox brand.

This could also be a way for Microsoft to keep everyone talking and guessing about Natal and therefore keeping the interest up

" Sounds like the decision to cut the chip and do software processing was a good one; reducing costs while keeping the response time low and getting that amount of processing done in only 15% of the Xboxes ageing processor seems like quite a engineering feat. If it means it won't work in existing games, who cares? No one wants this to play Burnout with - they want it so they can play dumb fun tennis games with their families. If they get this down to a decent price point, get the marketing right and get it out in time for the holidays - I reckon this thing will probably be a huge hit this Christmas. Even if it's awful, even if most of us 'gamers' thing that body waggling is stupid and pointless - the mainstream appeal will probably do wonders for MS and the Xbox brand. "

Very disappointing to hear, I am not quite as hateful as ninjakiller but yea at this point I just want good fun games I don't need some POS camera that just IS NOT going to work right, Me waving my right arm takes alot more time and energy than just pressing the damn A button, IF they got it working Flawlessly then MAYBE but it isn't, it's gonna be the Wii all over again it will seem novel and cool then you realize its worthless compared to standard controls.
 
Don't get me wrong I would love to be able to stand in front of my TV and pull a trigger and feel like a badass but its just going to be 2 or 3 hours of fighting the controls then punting the camera in the yard. I like MS I love my 360 but this whole Wii bandwagon BS has got to stop.

"Cheaper" is a relative term. Will the RRODs Natal causes be worth the savings?