Nintendo turned down Natal tech in 2007

Satoru Iwata felt it couldn't be sold at a Nintendo price point.

Natal, Microsoft's full body movement sensing camera technology for the Xbox 360, seemingly could have been Nintendo's. According to a source speaking to CVG, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata was shown the technology in an early form back in 2007, but felt it couldn't be delivered to gamers at a "Nintendo price point".

"What we witnessed at E3 was smaller and the facial [reading] stuff had improved, but it's the same technology," the source close to Nintendo told CVG. "We remain unconvinced Natal will deliver on the more sophisticated elements of what Microsoft is promising at the price they're aiming for."

This story comes weeks after gamers felt Microsoft had hurt Natal by moving some of its required processing to the Xbox 360 console, removing the on-board chip that had previously handled the required processing. This, gamers feel, will limit what's possible on the Xbox 360 when using Natal. With reports citing costs as one of the main reasons for removing the on-board processing, CVG's inside info is all the more believable.

"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," stated the source. "He also had some worries around latency during gameplay."

Natal is due for release this holiday, so by Christmas we should know if Nintendo made a mistake passing up the camera technology.