The Playstation Move is the much expected motion controller that was announced by Sony yesterday. It’s very much like the Nintento Wii remote, in that… Well, it looks almost exactly the same. It’s a wand that you hold and move around to have things change accordingly on-screen.
But this one’s black, with a giant light at the end of it.
At first, the device looks a little ridiculous… Looks awkward, and a bit more like a toy than a serious controller. And who knows, that might be what it turns out to be. But for now, we have to put those feelings based purely on aesthetics aside and focus on the usefulness of such a controller.
The Nintendo Wii has been widely successful due to its ability to get non-gamers in the game. It’s very family-friendly, and anybody can pick up the controller and play. There’s not much of a learning curve for most of the games.
The Playstation Move could accomplish something similar on the Playstation 3, but will also include more hardcore gamers who are more into great shooters and whatnot, seeing as the Playstation has a rapidly growing collection of such games.
It claims to have 1:1 movement ratio, meaning that the movements you make will be perfectly interpreted and passed on to the game that’s in your console. This is something that Nintendo lacked at the launch of the Wii, but recently added with the controller peripheral MotinonPlus. The Playstation Move will have it from the get-go.
This controller also doesn’t user a sensor bar… It uses the existing Playstation Eye camera peripheral to track your movement. It relies on the light on the end of the wand to get accurate data regarding where you are. (The cool thing is, it actually figures out what colour shows up least in the room, and makes the light at the end of the wand that colour, to add greater contrast, so depending on the room you play in, your controller will glow differently. Neat.)
Now, there’s also a “nunchuck”-like controller. It’s very similar to the Nunchuck for the Wii, in that it contains an analogue stick, but this one also contains the d-pad, which is missing from the main controller (to make it more simple, I suppose). It’s also wireless, so there is no cable connecting the two controllers and getting tangled up.
The launch for this thing has been set for fall, with a price point of “below $100″ for a starter kit that contains the controller and the “Playstation Eye” camera, which is a necessity.
So far, I’m not incredibly impressed, but I’m also excited enough to care to look at upcoming news stories about the device. It looks pretty promising. I regard the Nintendo Wii as a failure, by and large, but Sony has been sitting on the sidelines, watching how things play out, and I’m sure they will improve on a lot of the things that some gamers hate about the Wii. In fact, I feel that this could completely replace the Wii for some (myself included), as it’s essentially the same thing with better games and better graphics.
We’ll see where this goes. Hopefully not down the crapper. Listen to the customers, Sony! Fix any problems this thing might have, and you will have a successful launch.
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