Iwata Dismissed Natal Tech For Wii

Last year we heard via FT.com that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata turned down Xbox 360 Natal-like technology for the Wii which featured a camera to detect motion and speech recognition. Now C&VG have been told that in 2007 “Israel firm 3DV Systems showed an early demo of the technology to Iwata and other Nintendo bigwigs at the end of 2007″ and though Iwata was impressed with the tech itself, he was concerned about the price and had concerns over latency.

“Iwata-san only ever invests in something he can guarantee will work for a Nintendo audience. 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 secret Nintendo source continues:

“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.”