The PlayStation Move Arrives — a Hands-On Report

itwbennett writes "The PlayStation Move hit retail stores on Friday and blogger Peter Smith spent the weekend putting it (and his shoulder) through its paces. So how does this motion controller compare to the Wii? Smith says it 'felt a lot more precise' but that 'there were instances where the depth perception of the camera got lost for a moment.' The bottom line: 'If you have a Wii and the Wii Motion Plus accessory, there isn't a whole lot here right now to justify $100-$170 worth of gear for most gamers.'" CNET is similarly critical, complaining of the continual calibration requirements and the dearth of good launch titles. The Guardian's games blog agrees that quality games are currently lacking, but says the accuracy and responsiveness are a step up from the Wii, giving the Move a lot of potential. iFixit did a teardown, providing an interesting look at the hardware inside the device.

Comments

Is this a bad move for Sony?

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

We'll have to calibrate our polls to find out.

Re:It hit stores earlier...

[Anonymous Coward]

That and it looks like you're swinging around a vibrator.

Re:From a technical perspective...

[dr.newton]

From a motion tracking point of view, tracking a brightly colored ball is pretty much the simplest possible thing you can do.

I agree; that was a good call on Sony's part. Clever of them to find an easier way to do something than the competition.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is creating Kinect, which combines multiple cameras to create depth and color maps of your living room and model your entire skeleton in real time. *That* is incredibly complex...

Yeah, it's going to be hard to squeeze that kind of processing onto a console... Microsoft and their devs have their work cut out for them.

Instead of putting an infrared tracking camera in each remote (like the Wii), they can just use one camera on the TV and just put LEDs in the remote.

Totally! Choosing the cheap way actually allowed Sony to approach Nintendo's price point for once, and making it easy for the camera to track allows for excellent accuracy.

I think we have a lot in common. We should be friends.