Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[patsu]

It's under the developer's control. e.g., They have a painting demo where the ball will show the color of the paint.

That's possibly the first really interesting use of the BGB (Big Glowing Ball) on the Move controller (aside from, you know, making it work) that I've heard of. That could actually be kinda cool.

Ha ha, me think there should be more interesting and immersive use cases.

 

[eloic]

Does somebody remember EyeToy: AntiGrav?

Sony should release more games like this. I'm not satisfied with the PSEye being only useful because of the Move... I would like to see more games and applications similar to the EyeToy series, without a controller.

 

[corduroygt]

I somewhat agree with joker here that for mtion controls to be succesful, they should be as far away from the current hardcore console gaming experience as possible. It should be SIMPLE, like the wii.
I think the move controller has way too many buttons, all it needs is the trigger, the move button and PS button. no need for select, start, and the square triangle circle x buttons. If you want to cater to the hardcore, just have more buttons on the subcontroller, not on the move controller that you must include with every ps3.

Sony makes great hardware, they just don't have the right focus, unfortunately. Casual people want SIMPLE and intuitive games. Natal is intuitive and so is moving a wand with a couple buttons at max. Having 8 buttons will still intimidate the consumer.

 

[Rolf N]

Sony makes great hardware, they just don't have the right focus, unfortunately. Casual people want SIMPLE and intuitive games. Natal is intuitive and so is moving a wand with a couple buttons at max. Having 8 buttons will still intimidate the consumer.

Every last TV remote built in the past 20 years says you're off on that. Consumers are not intimidated by buttons. They will happily use the subset they understand, and postpone exploring the rest to "later" (or never).

 

[patsu]

May be it's time for TV remote to die.

I agree that having a controller-free or few buttons are appealing to casuals especially if the game appears challenging and deep. To be honest, I was intimitated by Wiimote button layout too.

However they are not afraid of buttons. If the buttons are easy to understand and used correctly, it should be second nature (e.g., We use two button mouse instead of one button mouse today).

 

[ShadowRunner]

I think there is a demand for motion controls among the core. Im glad sony are aiming for the core with move as well as casuals and i think the core gamers is where Move will see much of its success early on selling to their existing userbase. IMO they need to focus on thier current userbase first to establish Move as a viable device to develop for before trying to sell a ton of £300 systems to casuals.

Also i think this idea that people are afraid of buttons are totally unfounded. The wii didnt sell to people because the controller wasnt scary to them like all the other controllers they had seen, it sold because people liked the experience. Its the same argument i was having about natal, its not going to sell because its controllerless and people are scared of controllers, it will sell because the experience it offers is apealing.

 

[patsu]

If they can prove and communicate the benefits ! (e.g., would like to try RTS-like games, or let my son play R&C with me since DS3 is too difficult for him in that game).

I think web browsing with Move should be better too.

 

[corduroygt]

Every last TV remote built in the past 20 years says you're off on that. Consumers are not intimidated by buttons. They will happily use the subset they understand, and postpone exploring the rest to "later" (or never).

Guess which one is more popular:

Besides, watching TV does not have any competition from simpler/easier forms of home entertainment, however for casuals, a game is just like watching a movie, or playing cards with your friends. That's what motion control gaming should be competing these kinds of activities to get the casuals on board.

 

[tha_con]

I somewhat agree with joker here that for mtion controls to be succesful, they should be as far away from the current hardcore console gaming experience as possible. It should be SIMPLE, like the wii.
I think the move controller has way too many buttons, all it needs is the trigger, the move button and PS button. no need for select, start, and the square triangle circle x buttons. If you want to cater to the hardcore, just have more buttons on the subcontroller, not on the move controller that you must include with every ps3.

Sony makes great hardware, they just don't have the right focus, unfortunately. Casual people want SIMPLE and intuitive games. Natal is intuitive and so is moving a wand with a couple buttons at max. Having 8 buttons will still intimidate the consumer.

...except most of the games they have shown thus far aside from Socom use none of the buttons at all except the trigger..DOH!

I fail to understand how you folks are so confident that Natal is intuitive and great, when pretty much none of us have seen anything more than vapor ware and a buggy implementation on Burnout Paradise. I'll be excited for Natal when I actually see software this E3 that doesn't involve flailing.

All of this talk about "focus" and "misdirection" blah blah. It's filled with almost nothing but preconceived notions of ill-will toward Sony products, and for what? Because they launched a $600 unit with some arrogance? Give me a break. Move is just as well planned, marketed, and directed as Natal, and they actually have software to show for it way earlier than Microsoft. I am just not getting the same vibe from Move as you are, but then again I've been actively following both of these products, not just one of them...

Edit: For instance, here is the Natal Site for Microsoft:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

Full of vaporware and concepts that look neat in a video, but their application in "real life" remains to be seen (i.e. dress up, saying goodnight to turn off the console, etc). The video goes from a kid playing a fighting game, to a racing game, to a flailing game, to a skateboard game, and finally a dress up teen simulator or something that we all know will never happen this generation.

Basically, it shows just as much "lack of direction" (which I don't think it true, but apparently you all should) as Sony's product.

Then we've got the PS Move site:

http://us.playstation.com/ps3/playstation-move/index.htm

Clearly it shows the same variety as natal, with almost none of the games using complex buttons or movements, etc. Very simple, and EVERYTHING is clear about the product and what it is. Not to mention Sony goes out of their way to include lots of videos about Move, behind the scenes, and other things to help the consumer (or people visiting the site) understand it.

So please, all of you, tell me HOW this lacks focus, just because you're "disappointed" (read: being jaded about games) that it's "Wii-too" and not "OMG MINORITY REPORT WITH MILO!!". Because as far as I can tell, Move is the product that has clearly shown us it works, that Sony knows what they want to do with the product, and they're doing their best to get 3rd parties involved as well as some good 1st party software. I think that's more comforting at this point than Natal with nothing but Vaporware.

Now, I have high hopes just as the rest of you do for Natal, but I'm not foolish enough to champion it when we've seen almost no software and have heard very little about it.

 

[Rolf N]

May be it's time for TV remote to die.

Why, do you want speech recognition to be the only interface going forward? Those heaps of buttons give you quick access to a host of features. You don't have to use every last bit of it if you don't want to, but if you know what you want and how to do it, it lets you be more efficient. Why toss that away when it's optional anyway?

Every button does the same thing in flower. You don't have to be very familiar with the controller to play it. However it's still a good thing that all those options are available for other games. Just like I won't deny the benefit of a speech control option for certain types of experiences and circumstances. Throw it all in!

This is a cost argument at best.

I agree that having a controller-free or few buttons are appealing to casuals especially if the game appears challenging and deep. To be honest, I was intimitated by Wiimote button layout too.

I take issue with the Wiimote ergonomics (thickness, weight, vertical arrangement, symmetry), but intimidation is not the term I'd use.

However they are not afraid of buttons. If the buttons are easy to understand and used correctly, it should be second nature (e.g., We use two button mouse instead of one button mouse today).

If you look outside of computing, there's a whole lot of high-bandwidth interfaces that have evolved over very, very long timespans. Flutes, guitars, trumpets, pianos, saxophones etc. Or ATMs with touch screens. The thing they all have in common is that you operate [parts of] them with your fingertips and get immediate tactile feedback about what you're doing.

Pressing a thing with the tip of your finger is a very comfortable, familiar action, socially accepted, and makes you smell good.


edit:

Guess which one is more popular:

My guess is both are close in popularity, but watching TV regularly is probably more widespread on the whole, while music is a more occasional, bursty activity.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Guess which one is more popular:

Besides, watching TV does not have any competition from simpler/easier forms of home entertainment, however for casuals, a game is just like watching a movie, or playing cards with your friends. That's what motion control gaming should be competing these kinds of activities to get the casuals on board.

And how would you change to channel #173 with the remote with no buttons. There is a difference between an interface being simplified and it being intuitive, there is a synergy there but being intuitive is the aim above all. For instance in a 3d platform game it is intuitive to us an analogue stick to move a character, many on here think people are scared of analogue sticks, this isnt the case, i guarantee you moving a character onscreen using an analogue stick is more intuitive to a casual gamer than any other way you can think of. Same goes for making a character jump by pressing a button in a mario game, its an intuitive way to interface with the game. People are not scared of buttons it just needs to be intuitive. Removing all other forms of interaction and only having motion will be extremely counter intuitive for anything that doesnt relate directly to what you are doing. Raise your arm to raise a characters arm in a game and it is intuitive, rasie your arm to make your character fire a gun and it is no longer any more intuitive than a button press, in fact it is counter intuitive and in some cases a totaly abstract method, like a button press, is preffered.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Guess which one is more popular:

I feel the correct response to this is a photo of a glass of water and a handbook on how to drive. That iPod interface is no use for controlling a TV. It's also no use for playing anything more complex than a random selection of musics. Why is the iPod Touch popular when it has such a complex interface? Because that complex interface allows so much. The advantage of the Touch or any screen-based interface is buttons can be context sensitive. However, the complexity of pre-iPhone phones with their multitudinous buttons shows buttons themselves aren't a limiting factor. You just need the right interface for the job. Clearly that media remote would be overkill for a game! Then again, plenty of PC games are much the easier for having 102 available buttons to play, and attempts to squeeze their interfaces onto a limited controller are ineffectual. The end result is console games are designed for a console interface.

Move strikes me as an appropriate balance between form and function, giving enough buttons to allow direct, immediate input, but not too many. Much like Wiimote. Indeed, reflecting back on your photo, why has Wiimote got as many buttons as it does if 4 should suffice, taking iPod as an example?

 

[Xalion]

Guess which one is more popular:

As others have pointed out, this is a fairly silly comparison to begin with.

However, just using raw numbers from the year 2000, 95% of the 100,800,000 houses with televisions had a remote control in the US alone. 76% had multiple telelvisions sets, and hence multiple remote controls.

Lifetime to date world wide, the iPod is only around the 150 million mark for total sales. In other words, television remotes in use in the US any given year right now probably equals the total number of ipods sold to date. It seems to me the television remote is far more popular than the iPod. Worldwide, I've heard estimates of around a billion television sets sold in the history of television. If you assume even only 50% of those had remote controls, your picture argument looks just silly.

I am not sure your picture helped your case at all. Rather, you just proved the other poster's point. TV remotes are far more common that ipods, and have a lot more buttons.

 

[tha_con]

What strikes me as funny is that people think "casuals" (how I hate this term) are intimidated by buttons, which couldn't be further from the truth. They aren't intimidated by the buttons as much as they are by the experience and learning it.

It's no different from an everyday person who's never played an instrument taking the leap and learning to play. I'd say that playing a Guitar or Saxophone is far more complex than learning to use 8 buttons on a contoller, given the range of control necessary to do either. Yet people learn, because they want to learn.

The reason people don't play videogames is because they don't want to learn. It has nothing to do with intimidation. Wii is not successful only because of it's easy to use motion controls, in fact, that's only half of the equation. The biggest response was the short and fun software available for it. It broke that illusion of a "videogame" replacing it with something that has no story, and is "pick up and play". People are already familiary with the motions necessary to play Wii Sports. You move your hands to swing a bat, throw your fist to punch, etc. That's the trick.

Buttons have nothing to do with it. If you had to hold a button on each controller to charge the power of your punch, people would learn it. If they WANT to learn. Desire has a lot to do with it, more so than "that's a lot of buttons".

Oh...word of mouth and popularity have a huge impact too, lol.

 

[Arwin]

The iPod Touch interface could be a really awesome TV remote. Take the exact layout that selecting an App has now for instance. What you would have is the bottom row could have the four colors that current remotes typically have, or they could simply default to Favorites / Settings / Guide / Mode.

The default 16 icons above would each correspond to a group of TV channels. The default layout offered could consist of Sports / News / Comedy / Local etc. each represented by a nice graphic that makes clear what it is immediately, with the name of the category below, again just like the basic iPod/iPhone interface is currently.

Once you've selected a category, you can select one of the channels in that category, again just by tapping a tile, probably looking like the logo that most channels currently have on their screen somewhere already anyway.

It's definitely going to go away at some point.

I think each of the 3D motion controllers can probably come up with an interface that is at least close to that level of intuitiveness. I just hope that they do! If I were to work at one of these companies, I'd be having a field day redesigning the user interface for this purpose!

 

[Squilliam]

The remote vs Natal.

Well it does depend on what you're doing. So long as the voice commands and gesture commands work I would say the concept of Natal kicks the remote pretty hard where it wouldn't like to be kicked.

When remotes were the size of your palm and you had about 14 buttons they worked pretty well. They don't work nearly as well when you have about 40 buttons of which the average person understands a little less than half. They are simply not as practical anymore between getting bigger, becoming more obtrusive, and more complicated.

The very act of watching TV has also changed. People are no longer seated with a remote on the coffee table when they are watching TV. With an increase in the size of the television and their portability many people have them in their kitchen, bedroom and they don't always watch them whilst seated with a remote handy.

The nature of the market is more complex. 46 Million people in America suffer from arthritis. You can't say that because they don't populate message boards that they don't exist, or that the TV remote is the best choice for them. This is just one condition which makes using a remote control a difficulty. Try general old age and a general stiffening of the body. Age yourself 40 years then lean forward to grab the remote on the table and tell me that its easy.

TV watching itself is becoming more complex. Hundreds of channels, a handful of different inputs, relevant modes like gaming, 3D. Is it really easier to navigate a menu on a TV or to cut to the chase and just call out what you want? When people talk about the remote its always the ideal case of 'I have it in my hand' but what if your lady has it and she knows you're a remote hog so she doesn't want to give it to you?

 

[joker454]

What strikes me as funny is that people think "casuals" (how I hate this term) are intimidated by buttons, which couldn't be further from the truth.

You're getting bogged down with semantics. The word 'casual' gets batted around on forums because it tends to be synonymous with 'non gamer'. If you want a better and more concise description of who MS/Sony should be going after, it should be anyone that does not have a 360/PS3 and has no interest in procuring a 360/PS3 in their current forms and incarnations. That's who they should be going after. Nothing that I've seen so far on Move is doing anything to acquire that client. They seem content to go for the hardcore and Wii sloppy seconds which in my mind is a complete waste of time. Natal for all it's perceived vaporware and technical issues is at least giving it a try.

I fail to understand how you folks are so confident that Natal is intuitive and great, when pretty much none of us have seen anything more than vapor ware and a buggy implementation on Burnout Paradise. I'll be excited for Natal when I actually see software this E3 that doesn't involve flailing.

Except that neither manufacturer should care at all about your opinion, nor should any resources whatsoever be spent to acquire you as an audience. That's the hardest part to get across. You already have the console, you already spend dollars on it, and you already will be spending future dollars on it, so who cares about you anymore (from a business point of view). You're in the bag, you will support your console with your money one way or the other, on plenty of new content already in the pipeline. Natal/Move should have nothing to do with you. If they do, then it's time and resources totally wasted in my mind.

All of this talk about "focus" and "misdirection" blah blah. It's filled with almost nothing but preconceived notions of ill-will toward Sony products, and for what? Because they launched a $600 unit with some arrogance?

No clue what you're on about here.

Give me a break. Move is just as well planned, marketed, and directed as Natal, and they actually have software to show for it way earlier than Microsoft.

Natal marketing hasn't really started yet, so not sure what you are comparing it to.

Because as far as I can tell, Move is the product that has clearly shown us it works, that Sony knows what they want to do with the product, and they're doing their best to get 3rd parties involved as well as some good 1st party software.

This one is hilarious, especially if you knew what was really going on behind the scenes. But there is no way for me to publicly defend it, so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's no different from an everyday person who's never played an instrument taking the leap and learning to play. I'd say that playing a Guitar or Saxophone is far more complex than learning to use 8 buttons on a contoller, given the range of control necessary to do either. Yet people learn, because they want to learn.

I dare say less people learn though because it's harder. The thinking of simplifying things is good. Complexity makes it harder to have fun. However, one shouldn't simplify for the sake of it. Kinda like those designer watches with only one hand and no digits, where in theory you can tell the time from them, but adding the complexity of a second hand and some markings, it becomes a hell of a lot easier and more accurate. It's possible to type with only six buttons as long as you use combinations od them, but it's easier for a person to learn to type using the standard alpha-numeric keyboards we have. It present a lower barrier to entry. A controller with 100 buttons will be more intimidating than a controller of a dozen buttons and the arrangement of functions within the game to provide submenus or 'shift modifiers'.

Wii is an excellent simplification of the interface providing several degrees of freedom without having to learn anything. That's part of its appeal, and it'd be as wrong to say people only like Wii because its games are simple and fun as it is to say it's only due to a simple interface. There have been other simple, fun games out there, such as EyeToy. In contrast, Nintendo marketed themselves effectively and brought all the pieces together with a determined direction, coupled with a simple message to attract a target demographic unlike EyeToy which was a message lost among the existing noise of the PS brand.

In that respect Move is well muddled compared to Wii, but it has the advantage in being able to piggyback of Wii's success. Everyone knows what a waggle controller with arm-waving games is now, and Move is just PS3's take on it. It'll be down to the software and system in general to appeal. The controller won't be a limiting factor - it's neither too simple to be incapable nor too complex to scare people away.

 

[itch]

The iPod Touch interface could be a really awesome TV remote. Take the exact layout that selecting an App has now for instance. What you would have is the bottom row could have the four colors that current remotes typically have, or they could simply default to Favorites / Settings / Guide / Mode.

The default 16 icons above would each correspond to a group of TV channels. The default layout offered could consist of Sports / News / Comedy / Local etc. each represented by a nice graphic that makes clear what it is immediately, with the name of the category below, again just like the basic iPod/iPhone interface is currently.

Once you've selected a category, you can select one of the channels in that category, again just by tapping a tile, probably looking like the logo that most channels currently have on their screen somewhere already anyway.

Touch screen remotes have existed for a quite a while allowing you to do just this (eg. Philips Pronto). They even go back to the black-and-white lcd days. But they have evolved to include several hard-buttons for common tasks like volume control and d-pad navigation. Buttons provide important tactile feedback so you can use the remote without having to look at it every time. For that reason I'm not a big fan of them but they can be very easy to use when set up well and certainly have a high cool factor.

 

[ShadowRunner]

You're getting bogged down with semantics. The word 'casual' gets batted around on forums because it tends to be synonymous with 'non gamer'. If you want a better and more concise description of who MS/Sony should be going after, it should be anyone that does not have a 360/PS3 and has no interest in procuring a 360/PS3 in their current forms and incarnations. That's who they should be going after. Nothing that I've seen so far on Move is doing anything to acquire that client. They seem content to go for the hardcore and Wii sloppy seconds which in my mind is a complete waste of time. Natal for all it's perceived vaporware and technical issues is at least giving it a try.

Except that neither manufacturer should care at all about your opinion, nor should any resources whatsoever be spent to acquire you as an audience. That's the hardest part to get across. You already have the console, you already spend dollars on it, and you already will be spending future dollars on it, so who cares about you anymore (from a business point of view). You're in the bag, you will support your console with your money one way or the other, on plenty of new content already in the pipeline. Natal/Move should have nothing to do with you. If they do, then it's time and resources totally wasted in my mind.

What you are saying makes perfect sense but it is looking at it from the buisness perspective only, not everyone is interested in it from this angle. I have little doubt Natal is going to be a bigger commercial success for MS than Move for Sony, i do however wonder how much of a success it will be to us from a gamers perspective. Many of us are looking at this from a gamers perspective and i believe thier are two seperate discussions to be had here that are caurrently getting muddled. I dont care how many new non-gamers buy a 360 or PS3, i care how i am going to be effected.

From the same point of view we can take a look at the Wii, it has been a huge commercial success but i still hold my 360 above it as a superior product and one i am much happier with. Same with Move/Natal, Natal may be a huge commercial success but what interests me is which one appeals to me and makes me happy. I dont care about the rest of you, its all me me me