Tag Archives: PS Move

My 1st week with Playstation Move

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Since last week`s release of Playstation Move in Europe I had some quality time with the new hardware and games and want to share some of my first impressions. The hardware is robust and the button placement is well-considered. It reminds me a lot of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck but both the main controller (with the light bulb) and the smaller navigation controller (without the lightbulb) feel a bit more advanced than the Wii hardware in terms of button placement, power supply and the blu-tooth connection. Some of the games I tested have some delay issues but as this is only a problem of some games it should be mainly a software issue. But fast movement, e.g. in close combat games where you wield a sword, seem to cause more delays and wrong pattern recognition so it will be interesting to see in future games if this is also a software problem or an hardware issue which cannot be fixed easily.

A lot of the reviews criticize the calibration process but I experienced it not as an annoying activity. More annoying is the fact that most games want to see you standing in front of your tv set instead of staying seated. For sport games with a lot of body movement it feels right but for some other games I prefer staying seated. In most cases you can accomplish the calibration process sitting on your couch but it may cause some problems if you are too far away for the camera tracking or changing your seating position during the course of the game.

Now to the most important part: The line-up of games. As already mentioned in my last article on PS Move and Kinect I think that both start line-ups are very disappointing. I bought the Sports Championship game and played a lot of demos of the disk provided by the starterset and the PSN but there is no outstanding game to sell the hardware. Of course there are some updates coming up for games like Resident Evil 5 or Heavy Rain but – hey – I played through both of them and both seem to work pretty well without PS Move. In my opinion, the best PS Move  game at the moment is Flight Control HD. It`s an extended version of the iPhone game and puts the player in charge of the flight control of an airport with several airstrips and heliports in order to draw for each plane and helicopter a line to the best landing position.

The problem of the other games is that most of them lack some sort of gameplay innovation for the new hardware. Tumble is Boom Blox in HD, Sports Championship is basically Wii Sports in HD and I could continue the list further. There are some small highlights like the EyePet controls or the R.U.S.E. control scheme for PS Move but I presume that it will be not enough to make people want to buy PS Move right now. Of course Sony and the game developers around have a much easier transition from the Wii controls to PS Move than to Kinect but it would be very sad for the gamers out there if this leads to HD-clones of Wii games only. Hopefully Sony and some third-party developers find ways to use this hardware in challenging new ways and build good games around it – if they fail, it will be also the failure of the PS Move hardware.

Why Kinect and PS Move will fail

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Playstation Move versus Microsoft Kinect

Some days ago at gamescom Cologne I was able to spend some quality time with both Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move. Both hardware add-ons shall broaden Microsoft`s and Sony`s audience in the casual market and extend the console cycles of both the Xbox360 and the Playstation 3. Here are some thoughts why I think these hardware add-ons won`t sell well:

1.) Technical limitations. Before testing Kinect at the Microsoft booth at gamescom I really thought this might be the best tech update for the consoles coming up next. Sadly, I must admit that after testing it I am a lot more sceptical that Kinect will improve the gaming experience a lot. Why? There is an input lag of a half or quarter second. Every user I talked to realized it during play and I think this will limit the games using the Kinect technology a lot. And there are other limitations (lower body point resolution, only two players simultaneously, bad recognition while sitting) mostly due to cost reduction of the hardware. So what we saw in the Natal demos won`t automatically work with Kinect…

Playstation Move feels pretty the same as the Wii Motion+. The hardware really looks robust and stylish and the cable connection of the Wii Nunchuck is gone. But why should I spend some money on an interface that`s pretty similar to the Wii one? Only for HD graphics? Because some old games get a PS Move update? Colour me unimpressed.

2.) The casual games bubble. I think the whole hype in the casual game market is a bubble which will explode sooner or later. Yes, the Wii sold pretty well but the majority of Wii games does not. The game attach rate for the Wii is lower than the ones for the 360 or PS3 which means that there must be some Wii owners out there who own just a handful of games or less. And now Microsoft and Sony want to convince the casual gamers who already bought a Wii to spend even more money for another console plus hardware add-ons plus games? And as a casual gamer you get a lot of free games at the moment. You have a huge amount of Free2Play-MMOGs, you have free browser and social games and a lot of free extra content for some games you already bought. Why invest money?

3.) Lean back versus stand up. I remember myself being extremely hyped after the first Wii trailers. Currently I am playing Monster Hunter Tri on my Wii (with the classic gamepad, not the remote) – but before this the console was not running for months. For core gamers the Wii is nearly dead – and even good core games like Red Steel 2 have very bad sales numbers. Motion control works pretty well for party games with friends but I know only a very few people who like to play core games for hours and hours with the Wii remote and nunchuck.

4.) Games sell hardware. I think the biggest mistake of Microsoft and Sony is to copy games that were successful on the Wii. In my opinion both casual and core gamers are unimpressed by the starting line-up for Kinect and PS Move. More party games? Another sport games collection? A light-gun shooter? Oh, a virtual pet? No, thanks. Sony has a small advantage with some core games like Heavy Rain receiving an update or Killzone 3 coming from start with the option to use Move. But both games can be played very well without PS Move – so why invest 150 bucks for something that is not absolutely needed to play the cool games? Kinect provides a new experience but the focus is on games for kids (Kinectimals) or casual gamers (Kinect Sports, Kinect Joyride). All the cool demo stuff from the early videos (beat`em up game, godzilla game and racing game) that hyped me is gone.

5.) The extension of the console life time. I think both Microsoft and Sony fear the next console generation and the dangers of a new console. Betting on the wrong horse (BluRay vs. HD-DVD, anyone?) can cost you a lot of money and both companies seem to prefer to extend the current console life time as much as they can. Microsoft`s 360 is now about 5 years old and Kinect already shows the limitations of the console hardware by being downsized from what Natal was before – of course they could have done Natal but at a much higher price point than Kinect. With the 360 being on the market with less than 200 bucks you cannot convince people to buy an add-on that costs more than the basic console. That`s why they downsized Natal.

Sony has a more comfortable situation with their hardware being more powerful on the long run but they also will try to extend the console cycle as much as they can. They are pretty straight forward in copying the Wii tech and making it slightly better but I don`t think that this will turn out to be the best idea. Sony`s main target group for their consoles has always been the core gamer (except the karaoke fans buying their Playstation just for Singstar). With Microsoft making a move into the casual game direction with a more sophisticated hardware approach, why does not Sony take the chance to strengthen the area they are good at? Sony probably would convince more new customers to buy a PS3 by strenghtening the keyboard and mouse support for future games (especially MMOGs and shooters).

In the end it does not matter which games are the ones that sell a system or hardware add-on, or if casual or core gamers buy the hardware. But I think a lot of people have some Wii remotes and a balance board at home which are not used that often. At the price point of 150+ bucks people will make up their mind if it`s worth to buy the add-ons and come to the conclusion that it`s not worth the money at the moment because there are no system-seller games out there. No hype. Both companies were very quick in building their own motion control to compete with Nintendo. It`s just a bit sad that they forgot to develop the right games for the hardware.

Picture by www.videogameszone.de

My E3 2010 Wrap-up: Microsoft Kinect, Playstation Move and Nintendo 3DS

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Before this year`s E3 in Los Angeles I was really looking forward to the press briefings of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft because of the previously announced new interface hardware. I must admit I hyped myself a bit too much with all this Natal (aka Kinect) and PS Move stuff and perhaps that is one of the reasons why I was a bit disappointed by the news I got from the media events.

I still like the idea to interact with a console like Tom Cruise was doing in Minority Report but in the end it comes down to the games which will be available for each new system. In case of Microsoft`s Kinect I was really surprised that it seems like they cloned Nintendo`s games line-up: A sports collection, a cart racer, a nintendogs-like game and some sports activity stuff. Even the Star Wars Kinect game looks lousy: Poor graphics for a next gen console, standard interaction patterns instead of realtime tracking of the laser sword and some sort of rail-shooter movement. Ok, everything will presumably work a bit more precise than on the Wii but I think Microsoft really could have done much better with their line-up. Where are the new ideas? The only highlight for me was the dancing game which is a game that would not work on the Wii. But I doubt that this will be a system seller.

What`s up with Sony? After showing some fancy bow and sword action with the Playstation Move controllers at last E3 I was waiting for some motion-tracking games for the core gaming crowd. But it turned out that Sony had the same idea as Microsoft: Both want to expand their market with the casual gamers. Sony`s vision therefore includes a cartoonish sorcerer (Hello Harry Potter!) and some casual clash of old school game heroes. Of course, some older and some forthcoming AAA-titles will be supported by Playstation Move but none of them was presented live. It always sounded like PS Move will be a type of add-on feature but nothing the games will focus on.

So it turns out that both Microsoft and Sony are trying to follow in Nintendo`s footsteps by developing their own motion-tracking interfaces. Even though both Microsoft and Sony might have done a good job with their hardware, they failed to convice me with their games line-up. There is still hope that they both do better in the future but I do not find any reason to buy one of these at their release dates this fall.

And that`s why in my opinion Nintendo made the best impression with their media event. As awaited they presented some strong Wii IPs (Zelda, Metroid) and their next iteration of the Nintendo DS, the 3DS. The new version is able to provide 3D effects without putting glasses on and has a very solid start line-up  for a new mobile console: A new Metal Gear Solid title, Resident Evil, Kid Icarus, Dead or Alive, Kingdom Hearts, Ridge Racer, Assassin`s Creed, Professor Layton and some more. Of course, Nintendo is not the only one pushing 3d gaming – Sony presented their approach which includes a tv set for 2000$+ and wearing glasses. For now, it seems like Nintendo made again the right move in terms of hardware development.