Sony Motions to Move the Wii
Last week, Sony unveiled a new peripheral for the Playstation 3: the Playstation Move. It’s a two-piece motion sensing controller that picks up on not only motion, but also on where the controller (and thusly the player) is in relation to the console itself. The Move determines this by using the Playstation Eye, Sony’s camera peripheral. Using textbook motion sensing practices, Sony placed a colored ball at the end of the Playstation Move’s main controller. This is how the Move works in correlation with the Playstation Eye. Your movements will now be tracked by a video game. This is a breakthrough in gaming! Wait a minute…
Never before have we been able to throw a punch in real life and have it mimicked by a character in a video game so accurately… right? Well, maybe not until June 12th, 2009; you know, when the Wii MotionPlus was released. I’ll admit that the Wii’s motion sensing wasn’t perfect prior to the MotionPlus, but it’s definitely close now. Give Wii Sports Resort a try and get back to me; it really picks up every swipe of the Wiimote now. Additionally, there’s no need to have a very unsightly ball sticking out of the tip of your controller to make it work. Nintendo’s Wii is the motion sensing console, Sony shouldn’t be competing with them here (again). Considering how things went with the SixAxis functionality that exists on the current PS3 controller, why try again? I suppose completely copying what works is the next logical step in the process. Heaven forbid they try and come up with something at least a little different, like Microsoft did with Natal. Does Sony really think that they can do the Wii better than Nintendo? Even if they do, can they compete in a field where Nintendo has been running rampant for 5 years?
Wait you’re telling me I need the PS eye too! That’s another $40 plus!! Console peripherals are almost always doomed to fail. If it didn’t come with the original box, I don’t want it!
I’m gonna go home and play Eternal Champions on my Sega Activator now.
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About the price, the Move bundle will include the PS eye, a wand controller (with the glowy ball), a secondary nun-chuck-like controller, and a sports game for $100. Based on that I’d expect the prices to be similar to a Wii Remote ($40) with Motion Plus ($20) and Nun-chuck ($20).
They haven’t said the individual prices but I doubt that’s too far off.
Of course if you don’t own a PS3 you have to add $300 onto that. So for newcomers that makes it about $480 including a second set of controllers. Whereas the Wii is $300 for the same thing. Adding to that Wii Sports Resort and you get $350. So to be honest the price is actually somewhat competitive assuming the individual prices are reasonable.
Of course most people are assuming you’ll actually be getting a superior product. I can’t agree with that. Nothing Sony has shown has been even remotely close to the content the Wii is getting in the near future nevermind in a year or so. Red Steel 2 looks fantastic and Zelda Wii from the sound of it will be the best Zelda since OOT. There will likely be much more support for WM+ next year as well.
In comparison Sony hasn’t announced any software that actually depends on or fully uses Move. On top of this apparently it’s quite bad for First Person Shooters and requires calibration for pointer controls. This makes sense to me because it’s nearly impossible for a camera to tell which direction a ball is pointing without large sweeping motions. I find this amusing considering how big First Person Shooters are on the PS3.
Only time will tell, but Wii Motion Plus has already sold millions, I highly doubt Sony will manage to do the same with their PS Move and without widespread support companies will be reluctant to do Move exclusive games which will undoubtedly lead to a lot of last minute additions. So I doubt that it’ll succeed even though it’s actually in itself not a bad product.
Also Sony is still ridiculous for directly copying Nintendo like this. I mean can’t they think of something on their own? They even copied Wii Sports. Personally I think it’s just a terribly insulting move in combination with the way Sony executives are acting about it.
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