Those of you who weren’t present for this indecipherable boondoggle are probably wondering what the fuss is all about. The fact is there’s no fuss at all; the Project Natal Experience was a complete non-event — and I’d have said that even if the device, name, and launch titles didn’t all leak a couple hours before the show. But the fact also is that this was just too weird not to share. In detail. Do you like to read? Good.

So we arrived at 6:00, I say. A third of the street was blocked off to form the line, though puzzlingly, the entire sidewalk and parking strip was blocked off as well and inaccessible to us. A second line ran parallel to the main one, and seemed to be the dominion of anybody willing to look like they belonged there. European E3 attendees flouted traffic laws and took pictures of downtown from in front of frustrated buses.

Like cattle we stood for a bit over an hour, staring at a huge sign featuring Felix the Cat and watching a seemingly endless number of media people zoom by, getting line shots. There must be some streamlining to be done there: Microsoft should have pre-released video of a mockup line to obviate such redundant and pointless efforts.

The weather was clear and warm, luckily for us; Los Angeles has that going for it at least. A drum being slowly beaten at what we presumed to be the entrance to the Experience became like the tick of a clock — yet neither time, nor the line, ever moved forward. I struck up a conversation with one of the founders of Gamasutra, a site you should read. We determined that free to play is an interesting business model.

Finally, a bit after 7 if memory serves, they asked us all to crush forward, ruining our finely knit socio-physical networks and creating a rush toward the entrance. Fancifully made-up women and men were writhing rhythmically and sinuously beneath decorations that resembled ferns and scorpions’ tails equally, and their unexplained undulating had made us more curious than ever. The drum beat on.

At the entrance, those of us wearing green wristbands (Nicholas and I) were separated from those wearing orange ones (Matt) and many brief, but emotional, farewells were heard. Nicholas and I were stopped in order to be a backdrop for some sort of hip young broadcaster, and a hovering producer gave several one-minute warnings (cry wolf much?). Several minutes passed and although the front line was asked to show enthusiasm, we ended up simply swarming past, as the pressure of hundreds of attendees was at our backs and after an hour standing, enthusiasm was in short supply.

Before going inside, we were told “pace yourselves.” As to where this advice was meant to be applied, I have no idea to this hour. But what I do know is that upon entering, we were issued dazzling white polyester ponchos with puffy, rigid shoulder pads. Thus, attired as if attending a wedding in 17th-century Tokyo, we entered a dark hallway lined with velvet curtains.

It was short. Not ten steps brought us to a rectangular hole in the wall, through which was visible a happy family sitting on a couch in a brightly lit room. Through was the only way forward. “Welcome!” they said, grinning, as we stepped into the breach in the wall. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Puzzled, scared, and embarrassed, we passed on through to the next phase of the nightmare as the happy family warmly greeted the next clot of gamers.

Now we entered into the Experience proper. Emerging into the center area of a large exhibition hall, we began to understand just what Microsoft had in store for us. Which is to say, we began to understand that we would never understand what the hell Microsoft was thinking when it designed this absurd event.

Above stadium seating crowded with like-poncho’ed, seated attendees (separated from the center, and us, by enormous veils), there were screens a hundred feet long and fifteen feet tall depicting a jungle scene inhabited by Xbox Live avatars. They laughed, climbed trees, and walked jankily across the screen, eventually teleporting out to be replaced by a new set. At the far end of the room, a sort of series of boulders led upwards from a painted man in a spotlight, who appeared to be meditating as hard as he could. A family of three smiled and pointed from a couch suspended 70 feet in the air. Throughout our little arena, faunlike dancers flitted about, not speaking, but inviting you to tap your foot in a virtual pool of water or have your photo taken on top of a rock. Occasionally, one would do a backflip.

I describe it at a stroke, but there was much more to it than the setup. For one thing, the awkwardness was palpable. A few thousand people somehow related to the gaming industry, unceremoniously shunted into a weird jungle concept-environment which they are all trying to unravel, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and (fatally) nothing to drink. I will say this: if every time I was surprised by a faun, they surprised me with a vodka tonic, I would have borne the evening much better. As it was, we stood looking at each other, murmuring, and watching the glitchy three-minute loop of avatars in the jungle.

This is where it gets difficult to explain. You see, we stood like this, as we had stood outside, for even longer than we had outside, and without anything happening except an occasional faun backflip or a slight change in the music (imagine the theme song to climbing that big tree in Avatar, stomping on a human face, forever). There was nowhere for us to sit, and I learned later that there was nowhere for the sitters in the “audience” to stand. Nicholas had asked earlier: “Are we being waterboarded?” In a way, Nicholas: waterboarded by Enya. The event was scheduled to start at 7, and it was past 8. I posited two options: either this was it, and Microsoft had completely lost it, or there was some kind of insurmountable delay and they hadn’t planned for an hour of downtime. Matt heard it blamed on “VIPs.” I think they were having trouble with the elephant.

During this time, we of course wanted to record the nonsense going on around us. But everyone who produced a phone or camera was instantly shut down by a sort of gadget police, who informed us that any and all technology was being suppressed. They gave up after a while, because really, what are you going to do? Unfortunately the light was terrible and the only shot I got is at the top, there. The others came from Microsoft (from last night’s private showing, I gather).

After we had been standing for (I think) at least an hour, the fauns made a move. They split the floor right down the middle, grabbed some poncho people, and made a sort of soul train line, down which several people did backflips. I can’t say more because my attention was riveted on the fabulously pneumatic faun-girl in front of me. The faun-men were wearing all manner of thick and stylish things, by the way, and the faun-girls were made to wear the tightest leotards I’ve ever seen (absolutely not an exaggeration). Make of that what you will.

The soul train gave way to a sort of micro-show, in which some fauns mimed and showed signs to their side of the audience, and a pair of huge novelty cans on a rope was stretched from one side of the auditorium to the other. The two sides were meant, I think, to yell a sort of conversation, but games journalists have no coordination, nor volume, and the message was lost among the tom-toms and jungle flutes. Props to the fauns for disentangling the rope-ball and unhooking that poor guy’s head. All part of the show, folks!

We all expected this, I think, to segue directly to the show itself. Not really: we stood about for another 15 minutes or so, until finally, finally, the music changed and we saw some scorpion-fern-lamps being brought out. My memory of the event here is a bit fuzzy, but I believe this is about the time when the elephant arrived. The couch had descended, I think, and the kid got off, and then… an elephant.

Not a real elephant, of course, although it was quite well engineered. I can forgive the girls behind Matt, who he tells me were convinced it was real until displays on its sides indicated internal projectors. You ever see a hollow elephant? Me neither. On top of the elephant rode some kid, carrying a glowing koosh ball the size of a head. He dismounted, and was carried on the shoulders of some fauns, who (someone help me out here) I do believe dropped him about halfway to the stage and hurriedly scooped him up again. It was inelegantly done, I’m afraid, if a part of the act. Anyway, the koosh was brought to the stage, then thrown into the crowd, rather hard I thought at the time, where it nailed someone.

SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME, announced a voice, SOMETHING ABOUT CONTROLLERS. CONTROLLERING YOU. MACHINES AND MANKIND. BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING ABOUT YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER?! (paraphrased)

The kid then played his way through a few games on plain ol’ controllers, climbing up successive boulders, before climbing the biggest one… which suddenly was revealed to be — a huge Xbox X. Suddenly, all our shoulders lit up like fireflies. I had to clap at this. Well done, Microsoft. And now the kid played something without a controller, and we were treated to the name we all knew by now from checking our emails, texts, feeds, and so on. Kinect. Some of us also already knew the games they were to announce. You probably did by then. But we got the full monty — as if we had a choice.

The “final screen” was actually a small room in which (after it spun around a bit) was to be found a family of smiling, perfect actors. I won’t give you a play-by-play of the games they pretended to play (and if you ask me, a few they actually did), but we saw quite a number — a dozen or so. Mine carts, river rafting, standing on the wings of a plane doing nothing (?), doing yoga, dancing, a whole track and field thing, a pet tiger, and a Star Wars game assaulted us on all sides. One view showed the player, the others showed the game. As for how the hardware performed, who can say? Not everyone was convinced the players were even playing. I’m skeptical of the actual control possibilities, but I’ll wait until we get our hands-on. Anyhow.

There was a complete WTF moment at one point around now when, after seeing several gameplay demos obviously compressed to make them more rapid-fire, we were treated to an extremely long Disney castle logo and Tinkerbell. Yes, Tinkerbell took her sweet time flying all the way around the screens ringing the room, and her presence was never explained. They simply moved on to the next demo. If my mind could have been re-boggled, this would have been the time for it. Keep in mind that this whole time, the entire cast of fauns (plus their yellow, meditative leader) were perched on the boulders beneath this constantly rotating room, swaying and pouting and pointing at objects of interest.

While showing off the Kinect interface for Xbox Live video and stuff (which actually looked quite cool), the daughter of the family treated us to a curiously stiff video conversation with a friend, and showed a slideshow of slightly Lynchian photos of the family. I had to turn my eyes away.

The great climax was near. I forget how they justified this, but all of a sudden the huge screens moved and revealed behind them a number of small cubicles, each one of which featured a family in full dance mode. Our shoulder pads blinked and changed color; I noticed some audience members had already taken theirs to pieces and were waving the LEDs. The fauns broke out the flashlights and began shining them around, and the perfect family in the rotating box urged us to join in the dance party. Needless to say, precious few did (footsore as we were, having stood for about three hours straight now), and then, and as the house lights did not come on, we were informed that we had just taken part in the Project Natal Experience.

We were asked to return the ponchos on our way out, and in return were provided with toy cats and USB drives containing the assets you see adorning this post.

What is to be made of all this? Nothing positive, unfortunately. To be honest, I had to stop myself from making the preceding 2000 words a diatribe against everything in Microsoft that creates stuff like this. I mean, they must have spent half a million dollars on the setup, and probably have paid some 300 guards, dancers, “families,” and so on all kinds of money. And the message that the thousands of attendees will take away is…? Nothing. Nothing but vague memories of crass artifice and cute faun butt.

But it’s E3 and madness is in the air. Will anyone top this? Not to cut speculation short here, but I sincerely doubt it, and I can’t say that’s a good thing. I’m extremely skeptical of this kind of event, however colorful of a blurb it makes for USA Today. To anyone with eyes to see, however, it’s clear that this sort of thing is hugely wasteful — both of their money and our time. Nothing was gained at this event, and really, not much of value was ventured. Aside from the actual demo, it could have been an announcement for almost any product, by any company, and that soullessness undercut any joy it might have produced.

This sensationalistic flailing about, clearly just a common attempt to gain coverage regardless of content, is both unnecessary and undignified. It’s painful when you compare this to the huge and genuine response generated by a microscopic (but highly meaningful) PR effort like Valve’s promoting Portal 2. The excitement latent in a company or brand’s fans cannot be accessed with a shabby skeleton key like a re-purposed Cirque du Soleil act. The lesson I took away from today’s event was that Microsoft has no idea how or to whom they should promote this product. Anything would have been better than this — anything but Nintendo’s farcical stiff-backed-businessman-uses-hip-lingo strategy, that is, which would become Microsoft even worse than it does the big N.

I’m excited to try out the Kinect (which I say has nothing to do with the Kin, despite what John and Matt think), but this event only drained my enthusiasm. It was the kind of event thrown by a group of people who have no interesting ideas. Sure, this is just the debut, but whatever the follow-up is, this was inarguably a weak start. It’s too early to say whether the technology itself is compelling enough to bear the weight of Microsoft’s tenacious and mystifying marketing incompetence, but it shouldn’t have to in the first place.

We’ll have plenty of hands-on video later in the show.

I sure hope for Microsoft‘s sake this isn’t true. Word on the street is that Project Natal (which won’t be the final name) will cost $150 and will launch in October. Considering Microsoft is aiming Natal at so-called casual gamers, what are the odds these people are going to shell out $150 to be able to play that paint-slinging game we’ve seen demoed over and over again?

Microsoft will also bundle Natal with a new edition of the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU, with a price of $299.

How on God’s green Earth does the Xbox 360, five years after its debut, still cost three hundred dollars? Is that not crazy to anyone else?

These prices come from one of Edge’s “trusted sources.” Edge doesn’t mess around, so I’d take these numbers pretty seriously.

All these motion controllers, Natal and PlayStation Move, are direct responses to the Wii’s success. That success happened several years ago. You have to figure that most of the “grandmas,” for lack of a better term, who bought a Wii to play Wii Sports with their grandchildren have already gotten their rocks off, so to speak? They have a Wii, it does what it does, and everyone’s happy. How many of these people will now shell out an extra $300 to play more casual games, particularly when the entire world economy is on its tippy toes? Who has an extra $300 lying around to play Silly Game? How many casual games are free on Facebook or whatever? It just seems sorta crazy to me.

I don’t know, but these prices don’t look good at all.

Not only did Tariq say that Project Natal would be hitting the market in October 2010, well in time for the holiday season, but he apparently also revealed that the launch would be global, or simultaneously in North-America and the EMEA region at the very least.

Tariq specifically said that the launch is going to be “somewhere in October” and that they will be “in a position to confirm the date at E3, which is in June”.

So unless our dear friend Tariq got a bit overexcited, this looks like an official launch date confirmation to us. Microsoft had repeatedly hinted at an autumn launch, but this was never officially confirmed by company spokespersons up until today.

We’re looking forward to trying it out for ourselves. If you’re into motion-sensing technology and are more interested in a slightly more open approach, be sure to check out Israeli startup Omek Interactive, which aims to challenge Project Natal in a big way.

The company, which unveiled itself to the public for the first time at the Techonomy 2010 conference held in Tel Aviv earlier this week, was co-founded by a couple over 3.5 years ago. Nevertheless, chances are you’ve never heard that name before.

Chances are you’ve heard of Microsoft’s Project Natal though, the fascinating controller-free gaming and entertainment product Microsoft showcased at E3 2009 in June 2009 and is reportedly set to make its genuine debut at the end of this year.

Well, Omek is a tiny startup that aims to take on the Redmond software giant, their product is ready for market today, and they’re only now starting to talk to press about their well thought-out strategy and demoing their amazing technology.

I was lucky enough to be here in Israel now that the company is finally coming out of the woodworks, so I headed down to their offices near Jerusalem to interview co-founder and CEO Janine Kutliroff (a very impressive woman, to say the least) and record some demos.

In short: they’re developing technology that is nothing short of groundbreaking, and has the potential to change the way we interact with on-screen games and applications. Minority Report-style interactions are much closer to reality than most people think, as you’ll see.

I’ll let you watch the video interview to get an idea of Omek Interactive’s vision (hint: being platform-agnostic and as open to third-party developers as possible is something they’re betting the farm on), and to see the technology in action – the actual demos start around the 6:25 minute mark if you feel like skipping the conversation.

Microsoft, take note. Venture capitalists, you too.

Update: here’s a bonus video, made by Robert Scoble at the Techonomy event:

Surfer Girl Strikes Back also mentions that MS will announce two 360 Natal bundles at this year’s show and she isn’t new to the rumor game. This inconspicuous source has randomly dropped solid rumors that seem to work out. E3 is coming up in the middle of June so we’ll find out soon enough if she –or he — is right about this one too. [Surfer Girl Strikes Back via never know tech]

Looks like someone accidentally left Project Natal in a bar in Redwood City. An Italian site has what it claims to be photos of Microsoft’s motion-sensing controller thing “in the wild,” as these things go.

I don’t know what to make of it. It’s a bunch of photos of an instruction manual and the big sensor bar-thing.

But, if that excites you, so be it.

via Destructoid

Pretty sure Crytek, of Crysis fame, is usually associated with blazing fast graphics cards and extreme edition processors, so color me surprised to see it embracing Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s Move. Surprised and disappointed, to be exact—I shan’t be participating in this motion control business, that’s for sure.

Right, so Cevat Yerli, the Crytek CEO, said that they’re “working very closely with Sony and Microsoft in regards to motion control on both the PS3 and Xbox 360.” Want more info? Sorry, for “that’s as much as NDA allows [Crytek] to say right now.”

All of this hubbub stems from the recent registration of a name and logo in the UK for something called “Self Defense.” Word on the street, and I have no idea where this street can be found, is that “Self Defense” has to do with motion control.

Mouse and keyboard till I die, etc.

The source is a “very high-placed insider,” but could also be the author’s dog. He says that Satoru Iwata saw the technology and was impressed, but didn’t think they could make it happen for a Wii-like price point. That has some truth to it, since apparently Microsoft has been struggling to get the thing’s cost under $100.

[via Electronista]

You knew this already, but Microsoft told the Guardian at CES last week that there won’t be an Xbox 360 2 (“Xbox 720″) anytime soon. Microsoft would have told me this, too, but I wasn’t able to make my scheduled meeting. (My adidas meeting went much longer than I thought it would, if you want to know why. You probably don’t.) The point is, between software updates and Project Natal, we’re going to be stuck with the Xbox 360 for quite some time.

I remember writing about this a few months ago, that there were no clues, or even rumors, that a new video game system from Sony or Microsoft would be released soon. (The Wii HD is another matter entirely.) I was trying to make the same point, too: that since both the PS3 and Xbox 360 can have their capabilities expanded by adding new software, there’s much less of a reason to release a whole new system. That’s not to say that new systems aren’t in development, just that it won’t be for quite some time before you’re waiting in line at Your Favorite Store to pick up said New System.

It’s tough to overstate how big Microsoft expects Project Natal to be. We’re talking millions of units sold here, not Sega 32X-like sales.

It’s also tough to overstate how many times I’ve heard the song “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas in the past few days.

If anything, it looks more awkward than playing with dual analog sticks, but given the right game design, it could work well. Something where precise movement is less important than intuitive interaction (the Penumbra series comes to mind) might just make this fly.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in an earnings call that the company would have, barring possible changes in timing, 10 games available for Natal within the first six months of its release. He also said that they’d have 4-5 games for Sony’s motion controller, whatever it’s really called (can’t just be “wand”) in the same time frame.

While I wouldn’t say we’re about to see a renaissance in gaming or anything like that, I think it’s good that these new peripherals are coming out deep into the consoles’ lifespans. Unlike the Wii at launch, developers have a clear idea of what the 360 and PS3 are capable of, and so their real focus will be on gameplay. I’m guessing that the first batch of games will consequently be of higher quality than early Wii titles.

It’s still not simple which system to go for, however, if you’re still wavering like me. New Super Mario Bros Wii and Excitebike World Rally are enough to make me get the Wii, yet XBLA has so many indie titles — and serious, super-deep games like Demon’s Souls make the PS3 an excellent proposition as well. Well, I don’t even have a TV on which to play these games, so I should probably slow my roll.

[via 1UP]

Project Natal won E3 this past year. It came out of nowhere and surprised everyone. What was most shocking is how far along the system was developed. It looked almost ready for prime time, but yet the release date is seemingly far away. That’s fine but as time passes, the Wii gets a bit more stale and expectations rise.

The system has so much potential. Think about how it could change sports games, FPS, and general puzzle games. Suddenly you’re actually in the game as never before. It’s almost like Nintendo opened the door for next-gen gaming, but Microsoft could bust down the damn wall with Natal.

But not if the system is only between $50-$80 and 14 games are included like the rumor states. That’s right at the impulse buy price point - which is what MS is reportedly targeting – but also where all the novelty add-ons live. That price range shows that Microsoft wants to sell a crapton of Natals to the Wii crowd, but also doesn’t view the controller as a game changer.

It might have some sweet games that will give the Wii a run for it’s money, but unless Microsoft is taking a huge loss on each Natal sold, it’s probably nothing special. I’m not saying that an item has to expensive to be successful, but an $80 price tag on a controller that supposed to “next-gen” doesn’t exactly scream a premium product.

At $80, I expect Project Natal to be like the PowerPad: a fine accessory with a few good games, but not a must-have add-on. Now if the system were, say, $150 or more, I would have more faith in the system. The higher price shows that Microsoft stands behind the years of research and development and believes that the system is a worthy add-on to the Xbox 360.

At that price point Microsoft would have no chance in hell selling it unless there was at least one killer, mainstream game. The add-on would need the support of 3rd party companies and developers to get going, which would result in a wider variety of games. If the rumor is right, and the system is bundled with games, you can bet that, they are simple Wii Sport-ish games, which were cool about 3 years ago.

Let’s hope that Microsoft believes enough in the system to price it above the impulse buy price point. Let’s hope that the system lives up to its potential and not forced into parlor tricks but rather utilized for serious gaming too.

Also, don’t forget the prices of the Xbox 360′s current accessories. It costs $100 for a wireless adapter, $50 for a wireless controller, and $160 for a 120GB hard drive. I’m just saying, $80 doesn’t fit the pattern.

The Fable 3 announcement had creator Peter Molyneux saying he was throwing away the “foundation stone” of RPGs. Yeah, I thought, you’ve been saying that kind of thing for 20 years now buddy. Show me the money. And in a pleasant surprise, it looks like he may actually be doing that; he confirmed today that the game will use the Natal motion controller, which makes him probably the technology’s biggest on-the-record developer. He already hinted that this was the case, but now it seems that Microsoft is giving the go-ahead for making official announcements.

I can only speculate on the variety of sordid acts you’ll be performing with this thing. Dancing to impress the villagers? Throwing bottles at dragons? Impregnating your wife? The possibilities, I’m sure Molyneux will tell you, are many and various.

Maybe I’m speaking for the minority here, but I have to get this off my chest: Project Natal is sorta “meh,” no? I attended Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awards for a few minutes last night, and they had on display Project Natal. It was that paint-throwing game. Now, I know that’s just a tech demo, but I left feeling a little concerned about its future.

Now, it’s no secret that I’m an old school gamer who’s both afraid and annoyed by excessive change. I never bought a Wii for that very reason: I really don’t fancy flailing around like a fool when all I want to do is play a round or two of Street Fighter or whatever. (Admittedly, the Wii is fine for party situations when you’re all making fools of yourselves, and it’s about atmosphere more than anything else.) And while Natal—which always reminds me of Christmas for some reason—definitely gives off the initial, “Oh, that’s neat!” feeling, I really can’t see myself playing an entire adventure game using it.

At the event was Natal, of which we were not allowed to take photos or video of, and a bunch of other inventions and whatnot that I can’t remember right now. I hung around for a hot 20 minutes, and the Natal demo was the same one that was shown at E3. You know, the one where you move your on-screen avatar to throw paint and whatever. And hey, it worked as advertised: you move your arm this-a-way and your avatar moves right along with you. It’s damn near 1:1.

So again, the tech behind Natal is great. I’m just worried about the implementation.

How many Wii games do you know that made real, clever use of the controller? How many shooters have tried to replicate the precision of a mouse and keyboard by having you move the controller in 3D space? What’s going to make Natal so different? At the very least it’s going to be a little while before we see the project’s Super Mario 64, something so radically different, if not radically better, than what preceded it.

I don’t know, I’m rambling here, and lost my point several sentences ago. I guess I can boil it down to this: Yes, hooray for Natal and the underlying technology, because, yeah, it’s pretty damn amazing, I’m just having a hard time seeing it develop into anything more than a glorified tech demo. How would you play a Halo or Tekken with it?

It’s no secret, however, that the first games to come out for these things are going to be pretty bad. It’ll be amazing to even play bad games with these things, of course, but the subtleties of the hardware probably won’t get figured out for a while. As the Sega guy said, it’s “the land of bunsen burners and test tubes.” And we all know how fun those are!

After all, the first concern is selling units, and the truly innovative stuff happens after games and gamers have been observed. Even something like Super Mario 64, which certainly innovated in 3D platforming, built on other, earlier 3D or semi-3D games. The developers think you’ll see a lot of game+ releases, like say Tony Hawk with some extra functionality built-in, before you get games that are really living in the new control scheme.

Personally, I’m excited to see stuff move beyond the analog stick and/or cursor. That makes Natal the most interesting to me, but in the end it’s the games that will decide things.

THQ, fresh off winning a whole bunch of dollars at the expense of toy maker Jakks Pacific re: WWE video games, said yesterday that Microsoft’s Project Natal will launch “late next year.” And if you believe that…

Two weeks ago, Steve Balmer said that Natal would launch next year. Microsoft then came out and said, “Whoa, whoa, slow down. We don’t have any release date just yet, so hold your horses.” To that effect, at least.

Then there was the rumor that, yes, Natal would launch next year, but as part of a new Xbox revision.

Your best bet is to pretend Natal doesn’t exist, then when Microsoft announces its actual release date, you can pretend to be happy and surprised.

News from the East. It looks like Microsoft is all set to produce Project Natal-equipped Xbox 360s by the second half of 2010. Might as well circle your calendar. California-based Aptina will produce the 1.3-megapixel CMOS sensor required to get Project Natal up and running. (That’s it. Don’t click “Read More” because there isn’t more.)

The remainder of the interview (to be honest, the Natal part is only a little bit at the end) concerns Gates’ occupations now that he’s left Microsoft’s day-to-day activities, and he talks about some of his investment programs and what he’s looking forward to from Microsoft and other companies.

He gets a zinger off on Google Chrome OS, not exactly on the company or the upcoming OS, but on everyone who is slobbering over it:

When Google is doing anything it gets this–the more vague they are, the more interesting it is.

Is that not exactly right? I like Bill. I ought to call him up.