The blog circuit is finally getting some hands-on time with Project Natal, and there’s a lot of excitement about it. The breakout game in particular seems to get people to really appreciate the power of the peripheral, even more so than the Burnout demo we’ve seen so many places. A big part of that is the barely noticeable lag that accompanies the system. Unfortunately, barely is just enough to make for a frustrating game experience.

MTV says the delay is about .1 seconds – just enough that you’ll notice it, especially in games like Burnout where to-the-millisecond response becomes important. That kind of delay is bad enough for finely tuned controls that it could take Natal down to something neat you show your friends once. That is, if fine control were all Microsoft was after.

One really cool feature of Natal is head tracking. It gives the viewer a whole new level of immersion by changing the image on screen based on the position of your eyes relative to that screen. It’s something Johnny Chung Lee demoed using the Wiimote some time ago. It’s just one facet of Natal that will take it beyond a simple control device to creating a new kind of experience with games.