E3 2009: Motion control roundup
Posted at 22:38 on 3rd June 2009 - permalink

The E3 press conferences have now passed and industry watchers are busy digesting the glut of information. There is now some form of motion-based control interface announced for each of the three home consoles. Each of these takes a different technological approach, and perhaps more importantly, each is perceived to address a different role by its manufacturer. It’s also worth bearing in mind that none of these projects have been started with a blank slate, with the pre-existing Wii Remote, Playstation Eye and 3DV Systems’ ZCam dictating their respective manufacturer’s approaches significantly.

As these are the first attempts at a motion control system of this level of complexity, and because they’re patched together on top of existing technology, it’s likely that none of them represents the final stage in this particular arms race. In a few years time the console manufacturers will be able to look back on what worked and what didn’t and synthesise these elements into a new pseudo-standard, much as the various joypad controllers gravitated towards subtle variations on the Dual Shock.

Below are some thoughts on the possible strengths and weaknesses of each offering at this early stage. Of course the true test will be whether developers can find good uses for these tools and whether consumers can be persuaded to buy into them. The reception Wii Sports Resort has seen so far suggests that there is still an appetite for new control experiences.


Nintendo: Wii Motion Plus

Pros:

  • The Wii Remote can already be used as a pointing device, giving the system a technological head start.
  • Nintendo are actively pushing Motion Plus as an upgrade (not a fork), bundling it with games and new systems.
  • Relatively cheap hardware.
  • First to market.

Cons:

  • Might not offer as much freedom of motion as the other systems, where relative position is being tracked by a static camera. (The Wii Remote needs to be pointed at the screen for the camera tracking to work.)
  • Some demos suggest that the device might need to be manually calibrated (but hopefully not every time it’s used).

Summary:

With strong software and an aggressive rollout, Motion Plus’s commercial success is assured, but it’s missing the ‘wow factor’ of the rival systems. It remains to be seen if it can match the precision and freedom of motion of Sony’s demo, but on the other hand it might turn out that it’s still ‘good enough’ (as the Wii Remote was) even if you can’t perform zero-gravity heart surgery with it.

Sony: “Motion Controller”

Pros:

  • Extremely high level of precision.
  • Traditional genres being targeted, not just casual.
  • Acknowledges that buttons are still desirable.

Cons:

  • A risk that it could be dumped on the market without sufficient support.
  • As far as we know, isn’t backward compatible with the Dual Shock controls, so there will be some forking.
  • How many players can it track?

Summary:

The Motion Controller seems to tick all the boxes in terms of pure mechanical functionality, being precise enough to use as a pointing device in 2D and 3D. If the camera resolution is high enough it might even be possible to use it with small movements. The nagging worry is that the system could be rushed out as a Natal spoiler without sufficient software support. Hopefully Sony will have learnt from PSN and the revival of the PSP that it’s sometimes necessary to put their weight behind a product rather than leaving it to third parties to grow organically.

Microsoft: “Project Natal”

Pros:

  • Focus on immediacy and accessibility will help sell it to the existing Wii Sports / Wii Fit audience.
  • The only system that supports full body tracking.
  • Wider feature set (voice and face recognition) could be used in tandem to ‘suggest’ it’s cleverer than it is (see: Wii Sports).
  • Integration with the system dashboard.

Cons:

  • Probably not precise enough to work as a pointing device (compare the Microsoft and Sony live demos, particularly the paint programs).
  • Positioned as a seperate, specialised control scheme instead of a replacement for or extension of the standard one.
  • Esoteric features may not offer tangible benefits to most games, and end up being used in gimmicky ways (like the DS microphone).

Summary:

Project Natal has a bad case of ‘Not Invented Here’ syndrome, as if the Xbox team have been told that they need to make something that replicates the success of Wii Fit, but are determined to keep it at arm’s length from their existing business. I suppose if you spend years trying to play down the potential of motion control there’s going to be a risk that you start believing your own spin.

Getting Steven Spielberg and Peter Molyneux to make extravagant claims may be enough to impress idiots, but developers don’t think motion control is a gimmick – they know that being able to manipulate an end effector in 3D space is fundamentally more powerful and versatile than struggling with the limitations of the decade-old joypad. Still, as Natal is many months away from release, it’s possible that Microsoft will revise their plans based on what they’ve now seen of their competitor’s offerings.

(P.S.: I look forward to seeing OnLive‘s executives trying to downplay the fact that their rubbish imaginary system won’t support any of these controllers.)


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