With an official release scheduled around Christmas and an unofficial release scheduled around October (take that to the bookies), Microsoft’s Project Natal motion controller is all set for the big time. Product director Aaron Greenberg predicts the optional add-on will sell “millions and millions”, a blithely confident claim in a market where everyone who wants a Wii has already bought one. 

“Our focus for launch [for Natal] is on original experiences, built from the ground up. We believe that’s important because the first impression has to be a magical one,” Greenberg says in the April edition of Edge Magazine. “But because we expect millions and millions of these things to be sold this Christmas, over time developers will know millions of customers have these sensors so they can add functionality to their games.”

With a reported 70% of third party developers working on Natal titles, here’s to this not turning into the massive load of instantly regrettable shovelware and gimmicky rubbish that’s made Nintendo’s console increasingly irrelevant.