Sony Motion Controller: Cooler, but Still So Very Unnecessary
Recently I wrote about Microsoft’s Project Natal, the full-body motion-tracking camera that will let you flail and wave to try and play video games. Now Sony has unveiled their motion controller with a fairly impressive, yet lengthy, tech demo.
I’m more predisposed to like this one over Microsoft’s offering because at least here you’re actually holding something, rather than just waving your arms blindly through the air and hoping for the best. There’s something physical and tactile to help ground you. Second, they actually show some gameplay I might be interested in (Look! Weapons! Combat!) rather than the Clumsy Monster Game and virtual dressing rooms. And, of course, they didn’t use the Heavily Sedated Model Squad to showcase the tech. That gets all sorts of bonus points right there.
But at the end of the day, it’s still another “wave your arms to play” setup and I just can’t get worked up for that. It was a novelty (and a short-lived one) when the Wii came out, and I just can’t generate any more enthusiasm for the concept. Watch the ending of the tech video, when he’s shooting arrows at the slowly lumbering enemies. Cool? I suppose so. Technically impressive? You bet. But is it an improvement over the current set-up? Is that really better than entering first-person mode with X and firing with the right trigger? Which is better: ripping off ten quick headshots against fast, aggressive enemies, or laboriously setting up your shot against plodding foes but doing it in a more “real life” way?
Both Sony and Microsoft, and even Nintendo, say the gamer user base is shrinking (I have no idea where they got that idea) and that they need to do something to get more people into the gaming realm. Hate to break it to you, but this isn’t it. These methods of interaction aren’t any simpler. Maybe more intuitive in the short-term, but even the developers in the video show difficulty in hitting things on-screen, interacting with objects, and making things go where they want. What hope would, say, my parents have? And what non-gamer is going to invest the money into something like this on the off-chance that they might enjoy it? (And don’t point to the Wii’s astronomic sales; that’s just parents buying their kids the cheap console.) People game because they like the games, not because they think the control scheme is nifty. You want to increase the gamer world? Offer up better, more original, more interesting games with greater variety.
And quit making the models wave.
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One Response to “Sony Motion Controller: Cooler, but Still So Very Unnecessary”
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June 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I think you need to be more attentive to your initial instincts. The ONLY thing that makes this tech demo look cool is their “combining” of the game elements with the real time video of the player…in real life that doesn’t happen. Apart from that, the only thing that really impressed me was the response of the tracking, which I have serious doubts about when put in the real world.