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."

More precise?

[manekineko2]

"... 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.com]

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.

Re:What's wrong with gamepads?

[tomhudson]

And the bad thing about Wiimote is that you have to keep your hand absolutely still or the stupid thing decides you're trying to swing it around. That's the only kind of control Wiimote's motion control really allows. Shake or swing it, and your character does something, usually completely unrelated to the motion; try to replicate the actual motion of the Wiimote in the gameworld, and control becomes an exercise in frustration due to the lack of tactile feedback and the inaccuracy of motion detection.

Wii games use motion control as a gimmick. The actual control is usually done with the joystick (the "nunchaku") and buttons, and shaking either the joystick or the Wiimote is used as one of the buttons - and an inaccurate one at that, with the added bonus of firing randomly whenever you move. That doesn't make anything easier, just more annoying.

Where's the "-1 I only tried it with 2 cheap games and I don't know what I'm talking about" mod when you need it?