After demoing Natal, British TV gobshite Jonathon Ross tweeted that the performance ‘wasn’t quite there’… like he would know. Ross is well known in the UK for opening his mouth without engaging his brain. The Natal unit that he demoed was a Summer 2009 version, do us a favour Jon?…. Keep it it shut…

Jonathon Ross TV Airbag Rubbishes Natal Camera

Hosting an  event in London with various media bods a few days ago Molyneux showed his disgruntlement being blocked from demonstrating the latest versions of the Natal sensor and software. He claimed “It’s always a huge frustration as a designer when you see somebody play a version when you know it’s been exceeded many times over” That’s good news cos I, as well as many others, were a wee bit concerned… More good news, Molyneux also said:

‘So very often you get a position that what a person’s looking at is two, three, four months, a year old and you kind of want to go, ‘no, no, it’s 10 times better than that!’ So it is very, very frustrating; it always is – there’s just countless revisions of cameras since the one at X10 and countless revisions of software’

Another source, probably from Microsoft itself, claimed that the sensor in circulation was only 10% as sensitive as the current version. We’ll see when the ultimate iterration is released, along with a full line up of games, at E3 in July. Peter Molyneux will also reveal details of the much anticipated Fable III at E3.

Fable III for Project Natal

Anyone else think Jonathon Ross is a jumped-up brainless airbag? Do PM’s words fill you with hope for Natal?

It’s Mr Molyneux again, PM, top-dog at Lionhead, told bit-tech at the S by SW conference that Fable III will enable 360 gamers to unleash an ‘enhanced Fable III’.

Fable III, a bigger, better, brighter world... Thanks to Project Natal

Molyneaux, obviously brimming with enthusiasm about Natal, went on to say:
“We’ve been working on Natal for some time – we created Milo for the first demo – and we’d be crazy not to integrate the two,” said Molyneux. “I have to be careful what I say, there are PR policeman in the audience with sniper rifles… Natal is a fantastic amazing device because it’s so new and different. It makes designers like me sweat like never before. We were getting lazy, tweaking people’s thumbs for 20 years. A button does this, it’s all so standard. We, as an industry, we have failed, to some extent, to create a unique form of entertainment and Natal makes you [as a games designer] think again”.

What makes us curious is that a controller will still be required, that’s good news because it suggests that Fable III isn’t being shoehorned into Natal but rather that it’s there when it works… Cool…

Fable III will be released December 2010, which funnily enough co-incides with the release of Project Natal itself.

So what do you think, will Fable III be a winner?

Ste