The PlayStation Move Arrives — a Hands-On Report 185
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.
Not a Wii HD (Score:5, Interesting)
I picked up the Move and EyePet on Friday. While Sports Champions is nothing more than Wii HD, EyePet proves the real power of the Move setup. This game will not be for everyone (but if you have kids, it is 100% amazing) but what it does is amazing. With augmented reality and seeing yourself on the screen the tracking has to be perfect or it will simply look wrong. At no point when my four year old has been using it has it missed a beat. On top of that, EyePet uses a lot of video feedback from the camera for things as well. The best example is when your pet falls asleep and it starts "dreaming" about things it has done with you. It stores recorded of things you did with the pet and plays them back in a dream bubble over the pets head.
If Sony can get more titles out like this that show how it isn't Wii HD, they will have something.
Re:Not a Wii HD (Score:3, Interesting)
You could probably get the kid a real pet for less.
Now that I have the smartassery out of the way, is this worth paying almost as much as a wii would cost?
I have a PS3 and am stuck between buying Move or a Wii.
Re:Responsiveness (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering IGNs competence I would want to know if the TV or the Move system added this lag.
From a technical perspective... (Score:3, Interesting)
From a technical perspective, this is just such a pathetic response from sony to the motion controller game.
Sony used to be such an innovator (or so everyone tells me) but all I have seen from them for years is pisspoor effort after pisspoor effort. This is a particularly sad effort on their part.
Why do I say that?
From a motion tracking point of view, tracking a brightly colored ball is pretty much the simplest possible thing you can do. Check out this embedded system you could buy for $150 or so in 2002 that did it as a basic demo:
http://www.acroname.com/examples/10067/10067.html [acroname.com]
It was one of the first things I did when I learned how to use the OpenCV computer vision library. Its just pathetically easy to do. You basically max out the contrast, and any pixels still white are the bright spots. Go check out ball tracking or blob tracking videos on YouTube. Every college student with a class in MATLAB has probably learned how to do it from the ground up, without a library.
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 and extremely innovating!
It is just so sad that Sony is actually releasing this as a product. It is literally like someone said "Hey, we need to do something about the wii", and someone said, "okay, how can we do motion tracking the cheapest way?"
In fact, that's probably why they did it. 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. They probably did this first and foremost because it was cheap, and for no other reason. Its sad that a company that used to innovate is not just a cost-cutting me-too company. They didn't think about how to improve on the concept, or if it even made sense; they just copied it with the least cost they could.
-Taylor
Sorry Sony, but no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Scene: a couple of years from now:
Sony: We've decide that we are limiting your Move to only work within a 2 meter range of your TV.
Gamers: But what if my TV is bigger, and I need or want to be more than 2 meters from my TV?
Sony: Tough. We've decided that it makes sense for us to limit this. You WILL apply the update. You WILL be limited.
Gamers: But WHY?
Sony: The reason we are giving is that some players are abusing the ability to be more than 2 meters from the TV to cheat at games, or something.
Scene: Today.
Me: Sorry Sony, but you've screwed me once on my PS3. From here on out, I am NOT buying hardware from you. I will avoid buying new games. In fact, the only real money you are getting is what you get from my Blu-Ray purchases, which isn't much. You want me to buy this? Then stop taking features away from me that I bought and paid for, that you advertised, and that were a part of why I bought from you - indeed, give me those features BACK. Until then, I am not interested.
No hands on demos! (Score:3, Interesting)
An E3 article I read said that the Sony Move would be released Sept 20th. A more recent article said Sept 17th. It seems that nobody was really sure of the true release date. There was even a kerfuffle about stores selling the Move too early. Why didn't Sony make this a solid release date?
There were *NO* commercials on television touting the new product. None! Did Sony's marketing Dept just not get the memo? Something like this should be HUGE, but there was NOTHING! I had to go looking for ads for it on youtube and the PSN bfore I saw it in use.
I visited 5 stores over the weekend looking for a REAL hands on demo, and found none. All the stores had the devices in stock, but none of them had a demo. Does Sony have absolutely no confidence in their product to have a demo of it so people could try it before they buy it? I wasn't about to buy a motion controller that I couldn't test first.
And the only game right now that supports it is some sports package... Just like Wii sports. Is that the only thing they can think of for motion control? Sports? It's pretty obvious what any motion controller would be good for: A lightsaber battle game! Maybe even a swashbuckling pirate game. Instead, we get... Archery. Yawn!
It seems that Sony released a product without being prepared to sell it. I'm not surprised that it got mixed reviews.