By keeping up the tradition and allowing Sony to have the keynote speech and spotlight at TGS this year, it may seem that they’ve robbed themselves of some publicity for key technologies such as Natal. Not quite so. Whilst Sony may be showing off demos of LittleBigPlanet and Resident Evil 5 to highlight how their Wand technology can be integrated into games, Microsoft are playing the long game with Natal. The senior vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business (a title that proves people were removing the fun from games development long before Bobby Kottick) Don Mattrick has released a list of publishers who are “actively working” on titles for Natal. No word on any specific titles or whether any of the publishers will be aiming for release titles, but at least Microsoft seem to have got significant third party support from the likes of Activision Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, Capcom, Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Konami, MTV Games, Namco Bandai, Sega, Square Enix, THQ and Ubisoft.
Of course Natal is heavily rumoured to be further out than the Wand, with Microsoft not even giving the same vague assurance of a quarter that Sony have managed, so I would have been surprised if we’d seen any confirmed titles for the new motion tracking camera. However this number of publishers on board mean that we could see a glut of titles at launch. Now, speculating wildly, I could take a jab at some of the launch titles based on developers. With both Activision Blizzard and MTV Games on the list maybe some form of motion tracked rhythm game? How about Rock Band or Guitar Hero where you can play the drums on pots and pans, instead of fake drums? Namco Bandai and Capcom involved? Could we be seeing a fighting game like Microsoft showed in their Wiiesque video at E3? Ubisoft’s involvement could well mean we see the Minority Report style controls that were hinted at for EndWar make it into a sequel.
So what do you think those publishers are working on?
Source: MCV