PS3 motin controller unveiled

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SAN FRANCISCO--Sony on Wednesday unveiled Move, its motion-sensitive controller.

A small device that looks like a microphone--but with something on top of it that looks like a ping pong ball with an LED inside--Move is Sony's bid to gain control over the motion controller wars that are currently led by Nintendo, with its Wii controller, and which many think will be dominated by Microsoft and its Project Natal controller system.

To Sony, releasing the Move is an obvious move for the PlayStation, given it believes it started the motion controller era with its Eye Toy. Sony held its press conference during the Game Developers Conference here.

Now, the Move, which will be available this fall in a starter kit that begins at under $100 for a Move, a PlayStation eye camera and a game, is its attempt to jump ahead of Microsoft's Natal and to begin winning over Wii users.

Move has its own accessory, the subcontroller.

"We like to think that the migration path between Wii households and PlayStation households is a natural path," said Peter Dille, Sony's senior vice president for marketing and PlayStation.

Shuehei Yoshida, Sony's president for worldwide studios, said Move will "demonstrate that the motion controller for PS3 will be the solution for both casual and hard-core gamers alike" and that the types of games Sony can create with it are "amazingly diverse."

Among the types of games Move will work with include those that involve swords, bows and arrows, guns, punching and much more. The idea is that Move will provide players with a realistic and precise feeling of holding whatever kind of thing the game calls for, be it a sword or a gun.

Sony first talked about its new motion controller at E3 last year but didn't have a name or any kind of timing. Now, by unveiling the device's name it can begin what Dille said will be the company's biggest video game marketing effort of the year.

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! 0 t A said:
Project NATAL will make this thing wish it was never concieved on the drawing board !

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Natal, though -- the motion offering from Microsoft -- not so much. The same studio rep calls Natal a big, buggy mess. "It's sh*t," he adds, saying that it just doesn't work as promised. That it's slow and that the camera is imprecise, which he notes, is causing some major development woes.

He refers to a development conference Microsoft held not so long ago in which Peter Molyneux of Fable fame (presently, creative director at Microsoft Game Studios) took the stage and attempted to demo the publisher's much-publicized Milo Natal project. Molyneux apparently called someone from the audience to the stage and asked them to interact with the virtual boy, but it didn't go to plan. Natal's camera failed to see the person accurately because he was wearing a black trench coat. After some fiddling, he was asked to remove his trench coat and -- whoops -- wore a black shirt underneath. When it still didn't work, he was invited to take his seat again.

Next, Molyneux said that Milo could interact with illustrations drawn to paper and scanned by the camera. He asked the audience for suggestions. "You could see him cocking his head and listening for the right key words, and then finally he heard something the game would recognize," my development source explains. It was a cat. So he invited someone from the audience to ascend the steps to the stage and illustrate the feline on paper. When Natal attempted to scan the horribly scribbled drawing, it instead picked up the Abercrombie & Fitch logo on the person's sweater.

I laugh at this but try to play devil's advocate. Okay, I say, so it's obvious you're not a fan, but somebody must be getting this thing to work well or it wouldn't be on the slate to ship this year. I ask if he knows of any other studios struggling with Natal.

"How about Rare and Lionhead? They're just going to try to make launch and then they're going to patch everything later," he says, laughing.

I'm very interested in the platform, but I haven't entrenched myself in Natal development. Later, when I bump into a colleague, I ask them if they have heard any behind-the-scenes rumblings about development trouble with Microsoft's casual entry device. He turns to me and says that yes, he has -- that studios are telling him they're struggling to get it working.
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Yeah, Natal is that bad

Source : http://wii.ign.com/articles/107/1077008p1.html
 
Been hearing about Natal since long. After numerous allegations, I wonder if it would be anything but just another flop show by MS to increase the X360 sales. They'd better drop the idea and start afresh from the X720 or whatever they intend to name the console.
 
This is a post I made regarding Natal over at IVG Forums. Repeating the same since its relevant here as well.

The problem I see in Project Natal is that it aspires to a lot more than a Wii or PS3 type motion controller. Its easy to make people happy with a motion controller and Wii Controller already demonstrated that you do not require state of the art technology to make a successful motion controller. Its not easy with some thing like Project Natal. The expectations will be too high and the acceptance depends a lot on how much and how good Project Natal delivers. As part of my M.Tech specialization in Intelligent Systems, I have done some work on alternate modes of HCI like this and the area is still very experimental and any products at this stage would be very gimmicky.

If I have to draw an analogy to another product, I would say Project Natal is a lot like the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator. When people see it in demos at tech events, they go OMG, we can freaking control the game with our minds !!!. When the actual product comes out, a few people will buy it and find that its pretty limited and not every practical and definitely not up their expectations. Others may not even buy it after that.

The more Project Natal is hyped up, the higher the expectations will be and the more the chance that it falls flat on its face when it does not meet the high expectations.
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To put it short, Natal is a very ambitious extension of what Sony was doing with its PS2 eye toy and Playstation eye based games and it will be very gimmicky. Sony seems to have already graduated a bit from that and trying to build a much more reasonable and practical motion controller and camera combo that actually works.
 
Isnt that a far fetched statement. Calling it gimmicky.

Already its been demonstrated in exhibits with limited functionality it already did capture a audience for it. No matter what i see any who own a 360 buying it, if they can afford it. And its been few months and it still got some more time to release, MS hardware products are always of very good qlty, save for the 360 RROD. And they got funding like no one else. and couple that its 360, a next gen - Hi Def console with AAA titles, even if its gimmicky i see it going out of stock as soon as it hits the stores.

Keep a open mind and some optimism. they may turn out to be acceptable or even great.
 
But y not a motion contoller for pc games? Man everybody here own a pc & isn't it will be much better if there are motion controller for pc gaming too? It will save cost of buying a console to experience such kind of games.
 
m-jeri said:
Isnt that a far fetched statement. Calling it gimmicky.

Already its been demonstrated in exhibits with limited functionality it already did capture a audience for it. No matter what i see any who own a 360 buying it, if they can afford it. And its been few months and it still got some more time to release, MS hardware products are always of very good qlty, save for the 360 RROD. And they got funding like no one else. and couple that its 360, a next gen - Hi Def console with AAA titles, even if its gimmicky i see it going out of stock as soon as it hits the stores.

Keep a open mind and some optimism. they may turn out to be acceptable or even great.
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You can ask anyone who has done some research in this area and they will tell you that this this is currently pretty gimmicky and experimental area. I have myself done some work in the area and I know what I am saying. Its easy to build a basic system around the concept and demo it before an audience, its not easy to make it work across diverse user environments in a reliable manner. The results would vary drastically depending upon the conditions. A good implementation of the concept would require a lot more processing power than what 360 has to offer.

I still have no doubt that these would fly of the shelves on launch day if they set the price right (<$150). I would probably buy it myself if only for the novelty of it, if not for the practicality. Its just like OCZ NIA. People were impressed by the concept and many did buy it in the first wave. But how many are buying it still given its practicality?

Similarly, Given the high expectations MS is setting for the system, I am not sure how many buyers they would get it after the first wave. It would have to be pretty damn cheap. Sony would probably sell more units of its cheaper motion controller given they did not set expectations too high.
 
^^^^^

And according to most gaming sites this Move thing is pretty accurate, more precise than Wii itself (although it looks like a modified Wiimote), and may support SOCOM!!!!
 
It is going to support Socom 4. The Sony Ps3 motion controller seems to be an exact replica of the Wiimote. But imo that is a good thing. It can be actually used to do great things in gaming. The only reason I didn't go for Wii is its Ps2 like SD graphics, even though its controller intrigued me a lot. Now I am finally would be able to use good motion control on hd graphics.

As far as Natal is concerned, it will be good but I don't see any way of implementing it in hardcore gaming. Until I have something that I could touch and feel in my hand, I would no way be able to put myself in the game.
 
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