More news of Microsoft’s upcoming motion-sensitive addition to its Xbox 360 has been creeping out over the last couple of days, including the fact that we can expect to see the device in October.

Microsoft's Project Natal could well turn the Xbox 360 into a 'casual gaming' device

Still, it’s not all been great news. While many will be very pleased indeed to hear that the device is shaping up well, with word of a more solid launch date helping to cement Project Natal a little. The word of a launch date comes through the fairly unorthodox source of Jonathan Ross’s Twitter. Ross (or @wossy as he’s come to be known) said of Natal that,

“OK. Before bed. Natal on X Box impressive. Not quite there yet I think but tye have til October and if they get it right…skys the limit.”

The fact that it’s “not quite there yet” was something that threw a lot of people into looking up more recent Natal news to see what might be the issue, and it seems as though it all comes down to something that people have said poses a fairly major problem for Natal already… input lag.

Indeed, MTV blogger Rush Frushtick had a chance last week to sit down with Project Natal for something of a demonstration with other journalists. Frushtick though, is off a more analytical bent than most, and took the opportunity to investigate the issues that have been reported with Natal until this point, saying that, having timed things as accurately as possible, under the circumstances,

“Across 40 movements, the fastest life-to-screen transition was .08 seconds, while the slowest was .12 seconds. A tenth of a second was the consistent average though.

What that means that, in its current state, Natal is not instant, on-to-one motion capture. It’s close, very close, but once you start playing you’ll undoubtedly notice a tiny delay.”

It’s interesting that Ross considers this delay to be something that could well be worked out in time for the October launch, while Frushtick seems to be very much of the persuasion that we’ll not see that tenth of a second disappearing anytime soon.