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How Sony and Microsoft Hope To Crack the Motion Control Market
An editorial at Eurogamer delves into what Sony and Microsoft hope to achieve with their upcoming console motion control systems, despite entering the market several years after Nintendo set the standard. "The cards Sony has placed on the table this week suggest one answer to that question. It sees PlayStation Move as being an upgrade path for Wii owners — an invitation to the tens of millions of consumers who have invested in Nintendo's platform to swim upstream to the more powerful, HD-enabled system. Yet even Sony's most optimistic view of the market will be tempered by a dose of realism here. ... What's more likely — and what Sony are probably quietly hoping to achieve a significant proportion of the Move's success through — is that the technology will expand the appeal of the PS3 in the family setting." The Digital Foundry blog has an in-depth look at the PlayStation Move from Sony's event at the Game Developers Conference, saying, "... if there was one positive you could take away from the event, it was that Move is clearly a far more precise implementation than the Wiimote. Some of the games felt clearly more 'tactile' than the Wii equivalents."
In order to get that market, they will have to provide something Nintendo has for years... Games for everybody. Fun games for all ages.
I'm talking about Raving Rabbids, Wii Sports, and such.
My parents *NEVER* had any kind of console in the house, even when we were kids. They never even liked video games. Until they tried some on my sister's Wii. Now they bought one with many games. They're in their 60s. So unless SONY can target that kind of audience, it won't work.
The Wii has the games, and also the price. It's the least expensive of all three.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The wii controller can be turnd on its side and used as a gamepad -- so what are you complaint about?
Gamepads are fine, for certain games. Mortal Kombat-type fighters and platformers come to mind. Contrast to Wii Tennis with a Wiimote or an FPS with a mouse and keyboard. You have to pick the right tool for the job: if the challenge of a game is the disconnect between the player and the character being controlled the game will be frustrating rather than fun.
My experience is that it's really not that much cheaper. But rather it serves a different purpose. It is more for groups to play games and for casual gaming. The PS3 and XBox 360 tend to have games more designed for 'extreme gaming', online play, and long term commitment. Many of my friends who own a Wii say they only play it when friends are over and even at that haven't touched it in months. My friends who have a PS3 or XBox 360 play it at least every weekend, and often use it as a media player during the week.
The console is a tad cheaper and the games are a tad cheaper, but the peripherals, which make a Wii what it is, are expensive and plentiful. In order to play those group games successfully you need four controllers and likely four 'nun-chucks' which is $60 x four players. The PS3 controllers are $55 and the XBox 360 controllers are $35. Then there are balance boards and light sabers and gun attachments and who knows what else to go along with the Wii in order to play all the various motion games they have, most of which you will again want / need to have four of to get the 'full experience'. And now there's some "motion plus" thing to make the controllers more sensitive? Not interested, sorry.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The good news is that you can basically think of all of the good or even great games on the Wii and then imagine them with HD graphics and surround sound. The best examples I can think of are Resident Evil 4 Wii edition and Dead Space: Extraction. Both are highly polished, adult oriented, motion controlled shooter titles. Now imagine the graphics of Resident Evil 5 or original Dead Space on the PS3/360 with the motion controller functionality of the Wii.
The definitive version of Resident Evil 4 is the Wii version in my opinion. After using the motion controls I had zero desire to go back to the old pad controller for RE5 on my PS3. And after playing the RE5 demo I didn't even buy the game. If RE5 had the Wii style controls I would probably be playing the game now. At this point Capcom should should be begging MS and SONY for motion control dev kits for RE5 Motion Edition.
And think of added functionality and benefits that recent games like Heavy Rain (PS3) will have. SONY and MS could really take the motion control idea and expand it into games geared towards adults and older gamers.
The real downside is that the motion controls on the Wii have led to an enormous number of gimmick games with little polish. Basically crap titles that are churned out day after day completely watering down the system's library of games. For every good Wii game that comes out it seems around one hundred awful games join the fray.
"... if there was one positive you could take away from the event, it was that Move is clearly a far more precise implementation than the Wiimote. Some of the games felt clearly more 'tactile' than the Wii equivalents."
It's interesting that their experience is so different from Engadget's.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/playstation-move-first-hands-on/
Engadget's hands-on found:
* We hate to say this about "pre-alpha" software, but we're feeling lag. An on-rails shooter we tried out, dubbed The Shoot, was discernibly inferior to shooting experiences we've had on the Wii, both in precision and refresh rate of the aiming cursor.
* The system seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding the configuration of our body in a swordfighting stance: even though we selected "left handed," it was putting our sword arm forward instead of our shield. Right-handers didn't seem to have similar problems, and we're sure this will be ironed out in time, but it certainly shows that the controllers aren't magical in their space-detection prowess.
For every good Wii game that comes out it seems around one hundred awful games join the fray.
It's been that way since the Atari 2600. Sturgeon's Law: every console's library is 90% crud.
We tend to forget as gamers how unnatural using the gamepad for playing games was at first for many people, you know when our parents tried to pick up the controller and they could barely control the character? The great thing about the Wiimote and other motion is to try to come up with a control scheme that is more natural and integrates into what they already know unconsciously as human being.
Exactly. When the PS3 launched here in the UK, it was £425 ($827 at the time), and the Wii was ~£130. Okay, you can get a PS3 now for £250, but the original PS3 even out-priced many serious gamers, you could forget the PS3 being a Christmas gift for most kids too.
New release games are also expensive on the PS3, £39 to £49, compared to Wii's £25 to £35 price ranges.
I can't see either Sony or Microsoft succeeding, regardless of the quality of their actual products. The problem is that the "hardcore" gamers, the ones who flock to the Playstation and Xbox, don't want a motion controller. They're content to play games with a gamepad. Meanwhile, the more "casual" gamers have already gone with the Wii. Anybody looking into buying a new system with motion controls will see that the Wii is $200 while the PS3/360 are ~$300 plus the cost of the motion controllers.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the products (I suspect Natal's going to suck hard, though the feedback from Move seems to be pretty good) and everything to do with what people want. If Sony or Microsoft released a new, cheaper console with a motion controller packed in, I could see that being successful. As it stands, I can't see too many people dropping $100 to play LittleBigPlanet with a motion controller.
Exactly!
I played mario kart on the wii using the wheel and that was really fun. Not more fun or less fun than using a 'classical' gamepad. Just differently fun.
Wiimote can not be the optimal controller to do the job well. But I am not trying to optimize my karting play. I am trying to have fun!
DDR players can hit more steps per second on a keyboard than on a dance pad (compare Tedo typing 0x1311 [youtube.com] to Iamchris4life tap-dancing A [youtube.com]), yet players still use a dance pad for some reason.
As a part time achievement whore on the 360 I recently came across the webcam accessory with the game "You're In The Movies". I figured a 20 dollar webcam would be nice to replace my ancient pre-Creative Webcam III cam and the game would offer a few points.
I ended up completing all the standard missions of the game even going so far as to improvise my own green screen to improve detection quality.
My reason?
It was fun.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Seconded.
I have a Wii and an XBox. Personally, 99% of the games are more fun on the XBox. Why? Because it can be quite frustrating to aim with a wobbly aiming stick at something. Most of the Wii games are actually gimmicky, geared to showcase the controller rather than actually being a game with a story behind it.
Be honest: Take a Wii game and strip the novelty value of the controls. How much is left?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Wii used to be cheaper than the other ones. Today, the wii and the xbox 360 are at the same price ( $199 ). But the games for the wii are cheaper. They are a lot of very fun games on the wii for $15. I don't think it is the case for xbox 360 (but I don't own one so I do not know for sure)
Because in this case, the "controller" makes it fun. I'd guess the same applies to guitar hero and other music games.
But making such a "specialized" controller the standard controller backfires quickly because they are only suitable to a very small subset of games. I hope you agree that a DDR dance mat doesn't really work for ... well, any game but DDR.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I read the title of the summary and hoped that I could watch the comedy as Sony and Microsoft would try to compete against Siemens, GE Fanuc, Mitsubishi, etc, (you know, actual motion control vendors), but then I read it was about video games.
Oh well. So much for "news for nerds"
--
BMO
We have a Wii - it was the first current-generation console we purchased. We did eventually buy a PS3, but in large part it was because our old DVD player died - we figured if we were going to have to live with discs a while longer, we might as well have the option of watching Blu-Ray (through Netflix; I don't have much interest in purchasing most movies). Of course we did buy a few games for the PS3; but in the end we still end up playing much more on the Wii because it just seems to be more enjoyable.
I know there are lots of Slashdotters that really get into the high-def, shoot-em-in-the-head-repeatedly (or cut-them-into-multiple-pieces) games; but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of variety or innovation in the PS3 games that I've looked at. The graphics are certainly stunning; but so many of these games are just variations on the same theme. If these new controllers end up leading to a wider range of games, then great! But if they end up just offering yet another way to swing that sword or shoot that gun, I can't see them having much impact - the people who want to spend lots of time playing those sorts of games seem perfectly happy mashing buttons.
#DeleteChrome
It's the sound of millions of Wii haters
Millions?
I'm hard pressed to think of one. Lots of people think the motion control system is a decent idea, they just don't necessarily care about it much for games they play.
I don't have a Wii myself but I admire what they have done, which is to grow the gaming market to places traditional consoles never went.
I honestly can't remember seeing single negative post on the Wii, in a long time...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley