Because Move has been around for a really long time. Believe it or not, it originally started out as a PS2 project. They had a massive head start and tossed it away.
Tossed it away is maybe a big word? Would the technology have been feasible and affordable back in the PS2 days? I don't think so. At best, they could have worked very hard to have it ready in the early PS3 years. But adding everything up, from the gyroscope and accellerometers to the LED lights, I'm not so sure. I think they could have had this ready a year or two earlier though, which I have to admit may still be considered a big head start, at least versus Natal.
They have played their hand, and there is still nothing yet that screams "yes we will grab new audiences with this".
That's for E3, surely? Response from people who have done actual hands on has been decent enough though. If the Wii is still considered a Wii-Sports box today, then surely it will be an advantage to be able to say, the PS3 does all this and all that, and will even do Wii-Sports too, better than the original. Obviously, they're going for much more than that though, and I think they'll have more work cut out for them to explain that in the US and Japan than in Europe, where Sony has a good reputation in the casual market still.
If Sony were to compete with the Wii with this technology though, they may be better off focussing on getting the message out that the PS3 is also suitable for the kids, as currently Nintendo=kids over here and people will buy Wiis for their kids just because it's a Nintendo and their kids typically have a DS already also. Mind you, I think that a lot of families are discovering that the DS is all their kids need, and the Wii is superfluous, so that may not even be a great market to go for at this point. In which case we're back to the PS3 as a box that can cater to all audiences, young and old, casual and hardcore. Which I think is the idea of their 'it only does everything' campaign, so in itself, that doesn't seem to be a bad approach.
they can't compete on content since you are talking about 1st rev games vs 1st rev games.
Maybe, maybe not. There's an advantage here for Sony in that versus Microsoft, they should be able to benefit more strongly from the links between their product and the WiiMotion+ add-on. The two are practically identical for supporting 3D motion by itself, and the bigger third party developers (like EA, 2k, Sega) have been experimenting and/or releasing games for this technology already. For Natal, it's a much bigger step.
The situation is made worse because Sony is treating their item as an accesory whereas MS is treating it as a platform.
I can't judge at this point if this is true. What are you basing the difference between accessory and platform on?
The problem with Move is that it has taken the direction of being an alternative accesory for the hardcore, with some casual audience games thrown in. The good thing with Natal is that it has taken the direction of being an alternative platform for casuals, with some hardcore games thrown in.
I'm not sure if this is true or if this is a skewed perspective just from Move differentiating itself from the others by being considered the most likely of the three to also being able to bring something to the 'hardcore' (which, imho, is a category that is becoming increasingly outdated - are Madden/FIFA and Modern Warfare players really still considered 'hardcore'?).
It's a big quesiton whether Natal can actually become something in the public eye that stands apart from being tied up to the 360 at the core. Right now, I have a feeling that the PS3 has a lot more momentum going for it.
Seeing Kevin Butler ads? Sure they are cute, but largely useless because the people with whom those ads resonate the most with likely have a PS3 already anyways and/or aren't the type that would really care about buying Move games anyways.
Maybe. But then again they are very clearly not targeted at that audience necessarily. They are very clear about showing that they know what part of the PS3 is likely to appeal to what audience.
Your last sentence there is key, because in both cases the killer app is expected to come from MS/Sony. If they don't provide it then the consequences will reverberate throughout the 3rd party support network.
Even this is not set in stone, though. There's a big risk in having a Nintendo like killer app that stifles the desire for other games.
Milo gets ragged on by the hardcore, but that's because they just don't get it. The Milo demo had many purposes. Whether or not it actually worked turns out was completely irrelevant. The point was to demonstrate out of the box thinking to show alternate uses for Natal, to show that the host (MS in this case) has plans for Natal aside from just Wii clone games, to show that the host is putting research dollars behind the product and not just tossing out another accessory, and to get lots of free press with non hardcore audiences with which Natal is designed for to begin with. The hardcore forum folk will skewer it but they don't matter, they aren't the intended audience. It was different enough of a demo that magazines/website beyond the normal "just games" category were going to talk about it.
Definitely. I think it was a good proof-of-concept demo in that regard. But what will they end up having at launch is the big question - will they actually have that kind of experience, or will it be limited to the ball type demo? Also, I can see that Natal is going to work best when it can detect your full body, no matter the actual space requirements - the system is better going to have a special lense modification to deal with that, because over here in Europe a lot of people won't have that type of space readily available. I know I certainly don't.
Natal has a lot to prove. Sure they can get a lot of attention because of their tech. But that's not going to win the battle, because as you say below:
The Wii got crucified by just about everyone over it's tech limitations and turns out none of it mattered to anyone other than the hardcore, who I think still continue to harp on it today yet at the same time remain puzzled how it has wildly outsold everyone else.
This is mostly because in the end, Nintendo makes good software and puts software first, technology second. For Natal however, I still get a very strong impression that it has been very technology driven. I think there's some great potential for it to be sure, but I actually quite strongly agree with Sony when they say that even with the 3D tracking, there's only so much you can do without an actual controller and while Sony's tech has proven to me very clearly that the response from it is fast enough to overcome the basic lag-requirements. Natal hasn't yet. And the precision from the pressure buttons on the Move may turn out to be essential too.
Finally, there's the 3D factor. It may not become huge this year, but Sony is really up to speed in supporting it. The combination between 3D visuals and 3D control could really work out in the end, and while the 360 can sure support 3D, Sony seems to be way ahead here. At the same time, Natal technology could really come into its own in the next generation, and the lessons (and patent position!) Microsoft is learning in this first phase could give it an incredibly strong position in the next console generation (with a faster and more hi-def camera tech driving it) even if Natal fails in this one.
Regardless of how things end up turning out, it's going to be very interesting to see what all three companies are going to do this year and the next. I'm very excited to find out. If I sound pro-Sony here it's partly because I'm responding to your skepticism towards Sony.
That said, right now I'm personally more optimistic about the Move controller, at least when it comes to what I personally expect to like. The biggest weakness of Natal that I worry about right now is that with the Wii, you could make big, realistic movements to control the games, but crucially in most cases, you didn't have to.
I'm worried that Natal won't have a flick your wrist rather than swing your arm option, and that could hold it back even if the lag would end up being good enough (which is theoretically possible, but I have a hard time seeing how a sampling rate of 30fps combined with a fully camera dependent input method is going to get anywhere near regular controller like response times).
And they have a lot to prove in the software development department too. The 360 has thus far strongly benefitted from being a great platform for multi-platform games. With all three systems offering motion controls from this fall onwards, there's no doubt at all that we're going to see multi-platform games using them. Right now, the situation is:
- Wii has its basic motion controller (includes a microphone, speaker and vibration) and the low priced Motion+ add-on, no camera input (yet at least)
- PS3 has its basic controller (sixaxis motion controls included), the Move controller, and PS Eye input (which has a microphone array)
- 360 has its basic controller (no motion controls) and the Natal camera (which has a microphone array)
If you were to make a graph for this in terms of how multi-platform can take advantage of its features, you'll see that there's a big overlap between the Wii and the PS3, and between the 360 and the PS3, but there's a big gap between the 360 and the Wii. It's going to be very interesting to see how this is going to affect development. I have to go to bed, but it could be a fun exercise to actually take a few of the gaming concepts that have been popular over the last 10 years and see how they would fit into a feature table above.
Of course it could still all end up being irrelevant, if one of the three ends up creating a killer app that eclipses anything else. I'm increasingly skeptical of that happening now - the platforms are way too big for that already, and I think it's no longer up to a single game at this stage - but calling it impossible would be foolish.
Anyway, it's going to be very, very interesting. I'm happy that we're going this direction - I liked the Wii concept, I strongly believe in it and have since day one. Even on the PS3, the ease with which non-gaming friends could pick up a game like Motorstorm thanks to the motion controls was eye-opening (similar to the even more impressive way my 1yo son picks up on the iPhone/iPod Touch controls - I bought a Mac just so that I can get into developing for touch interfaces and write stuff my kid can use to learn and play).
I really want to see the technology become common across all platforms and see this evolve, and in that sense I'm strongly rooting for all three to become a big success.
