Nintendo Had First Dibs on Natal, but They Were Unimpressed

Project Natal might be the next huge thing to come from Microsoft, but it could have been just an improvement made to the Wii. Apparently, Natal's technology was showcased by 3DV Systems to Nintendo in a short tech demo back in 2007, but the company didn't think the idea was feasible enough for commercialization and turned down the proposition, letting Microsoft pick up the scraps. CVG got the information from an anonymous source, someone pretty high up the Nintendo ranks apparently, a source in which it has great confidence.

"Iwata-San only ever invests in something he can guarantee will work for a Nintendo audience," the exec told CVG. "3DV showed off a camera that detected motion in 3D, and had voice recognition – but Iwata-San was unconvinced he could sell it at a Nintendo price point. He also had some worries around latency during gameplay." The leaked information appears to confirm 3DV's involvement with Natal, something that Microsoft never made public, but also shows an impressive perceptive ability from Iwata, as indeed Natal has been rumored to have latency issues and sluggish control responses, even two development years later.

As for the chances of this being nothing but a misunderstanding between similar concepts, Nintendo's mysterious executive said that, "Honestly – I've heard Iwata describe the prototype he saw at length, and it's definitely Natal. What we witnessed at E3 was smaller and the facial [reading] stuff had improved, but it's the same technology. We remain unconvinced Natal will deliver on the more sophisticated elements of what Microsoft is promising at the price they're aiming for." Natal is currently expected to come out sometime in November this year, at an estimated price of just under $100.

The fact that Nintendo had a chance to steal Natal away from Microsoft has been flying around as a rumor and has been hinted at for some time, but this would be one of the most accurate reports of the possibility. Shigeru Miyamoto is another one of Nintendo's top men that briefly mentioned the idea, but wasn't nearly as detailed about it, simply concluding that, "This type of motion-sensing camera technology has been around for quite a while. [We've] ultimately made the decision not to take advantage of what they can do."