The fellow in charge of our sister site DVICE is Pete Pachal. As a guy who follows gadgetry, he knows a heck of a lot more than me about the divide between the promise of a technical innovation and the actual end result. So I was interested to read his take on Microsoft's Project Natal.

But remember, this is Microsoft we're talking about. Creator of the Zune. Maker of Windows Vista. Author of PlaysForSure. Given the company's checkered past (the Xbox 360 being a very relevant exception), there's a chance it might screw up Natal, too.

He lays out three very common sense reasons to be skeptical about it.

By way of contrast, I rode the subway downtown every day for E3. On the final day, I sat next to some fellow who got on the subway way up in North Hollywood wearing his E3 badge (I opted not to put mine on while I was still in the real world). He self-identified himself as a blogger and struck up a conversation with a politely curious older fellow, explaining E3 to the guy. I had to write down his comments about Project Natal, which were as follows, directly quoted:

It reads your emotions off a scan. Very scary. It's the first terminator. They showed a guy named Milo who helps you with your emotions. And this woman could reach down and touch a picture of some water and the ripples moved all around. Then she grabbed a fish fakely and it showed it on the screen.

While it's easy to dismiss the guy as clueless, it also says a lot about the message Microsoft is putting out.