http://www.edge-online.com/news/microsoft-natal-represents-a-giant-leap-for-tv
There's not been much discussion on Project Natal on here. Personally, based on what I've heard about the technollogy so far leads me to conclude that it will either be bobbins or move gaming into a physical realm which doesn't interest me.
However, based on the above Edge post I can see a more frightening side to Natal that prevuously hadn't occured to me. A box that transmits data in real time back to Big Brother Bings server's so that our benevolant leader can push content and products to make my life double plus good.
All hail BB
Hmm, I didn't read it quite like that:
Whitten foresees a future where Natal recognises the users in the room by appearance and voice and is able to automatically bring up content that they’d be interested in viewing.
More that he expects consoles to more easily tailor themselves to what you play in future. I'd expect something closer to Amazon's 'what you might like crap', and also the ability to turn it off...
Perhaps I'm just a bit more thin-end-of-the-wedge than you. Someone at Microsoft must be thinking about how to leverage advertising revenue I'm sure. If they're going to get any traction against Google in the ad space then they'll need to start mining user data and this sees like as good a place as any to start.
Hmm let's see. The person using the console is an overweight male, approximately 6' in height, he likes playing Outrun 2, but rarely goes on Live to play. Occaisionally a female enters the room, probably his girlfriend or wife. Let's push him some diet pills and some weekend away breaks yeah!
Hehehe. Surely they wouldn't pull anything like that...
Prepare to witness epic levels of fail. This is precisely what I DON'T WANT.