Thursday 18 March 2010

Sony 'Move' Presentation at GDC '10 - Overview and Thoughts *UPDATED*

On 10/03/2010 at 12am GMT, Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios, hit the GDC stage in San Francisco to unveil Sony's Motion Controller. While it was originally announced at E3 last year it wasn't till earlier this week that it was officially given a name. Over the past 9 months it has been referred to as the 'Wand', 'Magic Wand', 'Sphere', 'Gem' and most recently 'Arc', however on Tuesday last week it was officially named as Playstation 'Move'.

In his opening gambit Shuhei Yoshida announced that motion control had finally come to the PS3 and the precision, accuracy and responsiveness of Move means that it can handle hardcore games as well as the the casual, social games that uptil now have dominated the motion controlled gaming landscape.

After the initial intro Peter Dille (Senior VP of Marketing and PSN) took the stage to give an overview of the performance of the Playstaion brand over the last 12 months. The obvious games were mentioned, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, Heavy Rain etc as well as the release of the Slim and price drop but there were two bits of news that were of interest to me - The first was that there are a 'few surprises' still to be announced at E3 and the second was that GT5 will ship this year! Now, while there was no commitment to a specific release date I am assuming it will drop before the festive period. (Update - Sony have since announced that a release date will be announced 'very soon', so stayed tuned!)

It was also confirmed that the Move would released in several different bundles, with the Starter Bundle being available for less than $100 (that'll be $99.99 then!). The 3 bundles announced were as follows:
  • a starter kit with a PlayStation Eye, a PlayStation Move motion controller, and a demo/sampler disc,
  • a full PlayStation 3 console pack with a PlayStation 3 console, DualShock 3, PlayStation Eye, and PlayStation Move motion controller, and
  • bundles of a PlayStation Move motion controller with select games.
While there was no pricing for the other packages it was also confirmed that the Move controller would be available separately for those that already own the Playstation Eye (like myself). While on the surface it doesn't seem too expensive the price starts to rack up if you wanted 3 or 4. Later in the show it was also confirmed that Move would be getting its own wireless 'Nun-chuck' style attachment, imaginatively titled the Sub-Controller (or 'Sub'). I can't imagine that this will bundled with the main controller 'free of charge' either so it must be competitively priced if it really wants to compete with Natal. However that said you will be able to use a SixAxis Controller as the 'Nun-chuck' instead of a 'Sub' (Update - Apparently, while not confirmed during the conference, Playstation Move is limited to four controllers on any one PS3 System. Therefore that is either 4 main controllers or two main controllers and two 'Subs')

The Half-way point of the presentation saw the appearance of Scott Rohde (VP of Product Development, SCEA) who gave a walkthrough of several launch games. Prior to the demonstrations he did state that the Move "latency was on par with that of the Sixth Axis Wireless Controller". This has since been disputed buy some members of the press who apparently got hands-on experience in the Arcade at GDC. However from what i saw during the demos it did seem pretty spot on with regards to the responsiveness. I guess most of us won't know until it is finally released at the end of the year. I am pretty sure the 'Natal lag Vs Move lag' debate will continue even after both have hit the shelves!...Please note that many of names of the games are only working titles and the demo's running are all a pre-Alpha code.

The first live demo was of Gladiator Duel, one of several games contained within 'Sports Champions' - Sony's answer to Wii Sports. As the title suggests this is a fighting game that sees you battling various enemies in a gladiatorial arena. While the graphics weren't mind blowing, I don't think this element was the main focus. The main thing I noted was that there was Move duel wielding; one Move controlled your sword and the other the shield. I genuinely thought this was quite exciting and it will bring a new level of accuracy to games where you need to control both hands. (Update - Since GDC photos have also been released of the Archery game within this package)


Up next was Table Tennis, another game from 'Sports Champions'. My initial thought was that it looked identical to the Wii namesake. However after seeing the demo it quickly became apparent that the ability of the Move to handle more subtle movements means that the gameplay is more realistic as you have hugely increased control over the bat/paddle. During the demo we saw the Move coping with various shots including, forehand, backhand, slice and top spin...all quite promising.

Sport Champions was followed by Move Party - this looked very much like a cross between Mario Party and WarioWare (which is never a bad thing!). In Move Party you use the Move controller along with the PS Eye to create augmented reality, not dissimilar to Eyepet, whereby you are displayed on the screen and the controller is transformed into a particular object that is required to play the level/game. The audience were shown 4 mini games - Bug bash, Painting, Wacky Barber Shop and Blown Away. In each mini game the playstation Move is replaced...in the case of Bug Bash the Move is cleverly replaced on screen by a Fly Swatter, in Painting its a paint brush, Wacky Barber Shop some clippers and Blown Away a fan. This was quite impressive and did look like it could be a great game to play with a few friends and a couple of beers. The basic tech housed in this game has already been seen in Eyepet (released last year) and it really impressed me then. Hopefully the addition of Move and the additional development time means that the tech we saw in its infancy last year can really be built upon.

The next demo saw the focus switch from new games to existing franchises. Sony have already confirmed that a lot of existing games will/can be updated via a patch to support Move. The game on show at the GDC to demonstrate the Move compatibility was LBP. In the demo shown one player controlled Sackboy and the other controlled switches, objects and the environment using Move. This demo was interesting as it put a slightly different spin on the established LBP co-op play. Whereas normally in the LBP multi-player it can get quite competitive with the various players trying to collect more stickers or points than the other the implementation of Move means players will have to play together if they want to complete the levels. While this looked fun it had the feel of a game that's had motion control bolted on as an after thought. While this is obvious as LBP has been out 18 months I am not sure if LBP will benefit from the addition of Move. However it is going to be interesting to see how Move is used in other existing titles such as Killzone etc.

The final batch of demo's/trailers saw the appearance of Eyepet (I don't know if it was suppose to be Eyepet 2 or an 'upgrade' to the first game), SOCOM 4 and Motion Fighters. With regards to Eyepet I'd imagine Move simply replaces the 'Magic Card' - which I thought worked really well anyhow. Motion Fighters , while initially it looked like a Wii Boxing, Super Punch Out clone as the demo went on it showed promise. This was another game that had duel Move controllers and each controller represented the hand/fist of the fighter on screen. The graphics were obviously a massive improvement over the aforementioned Nintendo titles. During the demo we saw various moves demonstrated including hooks, upper cuts, a very cool spinning back fist/elbow and even a head-lock with some dirty boxing. While it remains to be seen if this is worthy of a full game price tag it would make a really nice addition to a sports compilation style package (a la Sports Champions). The final demo saw the unveiling of SOCOM 4 and what Sony referred to as the hardcore game element. This for some is the reason why the Move may have the advantage over its competitors. It is claimed that the accuracy and responsiveness of Move means that motion controlled FPSs will be and are possible on the PS3. While it was hard to tell how responsive and accurate the move was when it came to controlling the reticule in SOCOM 4 it did look pretty spot-on and I will be watching this one over the next few months. Whether players will chose this control method over the traditional game pad is another story all together!

I know since its launch much has been said about the lack of serious/hardcore games on the Wii and in turn much has been said (since the announcement of the newly named Move) about the use of the Move in more 'serious' gaming but would games like God of War or Call of Duty really benefit from having motion controls? While initially it would feel quite exciting and different I really think that it would get tiresome quickly and I really don't think hardcore gamers would permanently swap their SixAxis for Move. Saying that I believe there is room for both traditional, serious games and more casual, party games in anyones collection. Come the Autumn when the public is able to get there hands on Move/Natal we will be able to make own minds up as to whether HD Next Gen Motion Controlled Games really are the future. JB

PS. For anyone that did not have a chance to see the presentation last week then I have posted up the live stream for your viewing pleasure.

Live TV by Ustream

Minority Report style Tech Demo - This looks very cool!



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