Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[obonicus]

Source?

Edit: I wish I knew why GAF was melting down so badly. Can't imagine how it'll be tomorrow, NPD day.

 

[V3]

As it turns out the subcontroller is not included in the $100 bundle. Wow.

That's probably why they want you to use the sixaxis or DS3 with Move. Too expensive. It'll be hard for Sony to bundle PS3 with Move for $300. And MS will most likely do 360+Natal for that much.

 

[Rangers]

Good old Sony . They've got lots of sales momentum, hot titles, and their fanboys rolling the last few months. Then they crash back to earth with a presentation

Seriously the last few Sony presentations (or at least several of them) have just been awful.

Here's some Engadget thoughts I happened across. He mentions the dreaded L word...

Here are some of our initial thoughts:

* The controllers are light. Much more akin to the DualShock3 than the Wiimote in heft, and we're guessing that's due to Sony's continued love of rechargeable batteries.
* The main controller does have some subtle vibration (not DualShock or Wiimote level, but present), but we're not sure yet about the subcontroller.
* We hate to say this about "pre-alpha" software, but we're feeling lag. An on-rails shooter we tried out, dubbed The Shoot, was discernibly inferior to shooting experiences we've had on the Wii, both in precision and refresh rate of the aiming cursor.
* The gladiator game is about as fun as it looks, we'll have video after the break momentarily. Unfortunately, while it's less of a defined experience than something like the sword game on Wii Sports Resort, you're still working through a library of sensed, pre-defined actions instead of a true 1:1 fighting game with simulated physics. Not that it isn't possible with PlayStation Move, just that it's not this.
* The lightness of the controllers means we might be feeling less of that Wiimote fatigue, always a good thing! There's an aspect of the controller that feels a little cheap, but at the same time we wouldn't call it fragile.
* As far as we can tell, the control scheme for Socom 4 is quite similar to dual-controller shooter setups on the Wii, with the camera moving based on your aiming cursor hitting the edge. It's hard to see this as the preferred hardcore setup, but we're told it's configurable, so we'll try and see what else is on offer.
* The system seemed to have a bit of trouble understanding the configuration of our body in a swordfighting stance: even though we selected "left handed," it was putting our sword arm forward instead of our shield. Right-handers didn't seem to have similar problems, and we're sure this will be ironed out in time, but it certainly shows that the controllers aren't magical in their space-detection prowess.
* As would be expected, you're supposed to stand relatively center on the TV, and at a certain optimal distance. The system is forgiving, but there's a sweet spot that users will undoubtedly have to learn.

Well, the sad thing is, it's now clear we're going to see a lot of the same crap at MS's E3 Natal blowout...probably more variations on the same Wii-alike titles, etc etc. But there may be one or two cool gems in there (Milo).

 

[V3]

What about this for a WASD replacement when dual-wielding... on the left Move use trigger underneath for forward movement and big face button for reverse. On the right Move use the X for left strafe and O for right strafe.

You lose the trigger button that way though and it's difficult to map the subcontroller buttons to the second Move and vice versa. They should forget the subcontroller and redesign the Move to combine the function on the subcontroller. That way Move is standardised and two Move become expansion of the DS3 controller.

That way Sony can just swap DS3 with two Move with every PS3 and it can play DS3/Sixaxis games with no problem. If not they need to bundle DS3 with Move in every PS3 and that will be difficult to compete with MS and Nintendo.

 

[LightHeaven]

My god, this presentation and the games themselves were so bad that i completely lost hope in Ps Move being anything else but a failure XD

I know that's still working in progress, but the demos felt so uninspired, so not fun, and from the videos, even the control itself didn't look so hot either that i almost feel embarrassed for sony XD

WTH happened? On the demos they had this amazing precision, while now in the gameplay videos it just doesn't seem to be all there. Specially the pointing. That looked just bad.

 

[patsu]

Edit: I wish I knew why GAF was melting down so badly.

It's difficult to "build a better mouse trap". People will always compare with the original version. Although Sony's base technologies may be more versatile, the developers need time to polish their games. It looks like they are still grappling with the implementation of the basic mechanics. I do agree that the games do not look refreshing nor exceptionally fun (like WiiSports). Even the addition of PS Move to EyePet didn't really do anything new. Finally, the alleged lag in The Shooter (pre-Alpha) is also a mismanagement. We all know software and user experience are critical, and yet Sony can't seem to be bothered with controlling their exposure. They should know by now that the tag "pre-Alpha" won't stop people from criticizing.

In the presentation, it looked like the Sony execs did not know what they were shooting for. They wanted to use Move to enhance core gameplay, but none of today's demoes illustrated that clearly. All we saw were the same old stuff either in EyeToy, the last E3 or Wii.

I'd rather they used the session for educational purposes. e.g., Pick a mechanics (sword fighting, boxing), and show how they decide and implement them. In the Engadget impression, they seem to expect the sword-n-shield game to just follow/track the players' swinging (and physics) to make fighting fun. I don't think that's right. What Sony or the dev may need to highlight is that they want to put in some sort of special moves to introduce skills, and power moves. The standard 1-to-1 movement tracking is rather basic and will be supported inherently, but may not be encouraged in a hardcore game (It's like button mashing !). They may also want to use the buttons to indicate the "strength" of a stroke. As a result, the pre-alpha game is focused on teasing out the desired behaviour. The session may even benefit from an in-depth and interactive discussion and tool demo, while we the consumers learn by watching. It would help us understand the depth better. And they get to introduce a new game to us. If they want, they can show us funny focus test videos too.

In any case, what's done is done. I am kinda glad they failed here rather than in E3. Hopefully they pay more attention to their planning and execution. Is Kaz Hirai behind this ?

IMHO, I also think the position of chasing after Wii upgrader is ok (so-so) but not presented well. There are more than one ways to do it. IMHO, it's not a simple matter of statistics (Statistics is about the past and forecast, may not be real). They could have elaborated slightly more on their philosophy (What is the fundamental differences between Move and others ?).

My god, this presentation and the games themselves were so bad that i completely lost hope in Ps Move being anything else but a failure XD

I know that's still working in progress, but the demos felt so uninspired, so not fun, and from the videos, even the control itself didn't look so hot either that i almost feel embarrassed for sony XD

WTH happened? On the demos they had this amazing precision, while now in the gameplay videos it just doesn't seem to be all there. Specially the pointing. That looked just bad.

Which video shows the bad pointing ? The Socom demo plays fine, but they didn't tell us the advantage of using PS Move.

 

[Rotmm]

I wonder why the last-minute name change from Arc to Move? It's clear, as the snazzy looking logo on the controller looks like an A, that the main controller was going to be called Arc. Was the 2nd controller originally going to be called "Move" and not "Playstation Move Sub-Controller"? It makes sense, given that the primary function of the 2nd controller is to manage movement.

So why not stick with Arc for the main glowstick?

 

[zed]

I wonder why the last-minute name change from Arc to Move? It's clear, as the snazzy looking logo on the controller looks like an A, that the main controller was going to be called Arc.

thats an extremely long bow
actually it looks more like an 'n' perhaps they were gonna call it 'nob' which IMO would of been a great name

move is a better name than arc, though I cant understand why it wasnt called 'wand'
possible reasons
A/ someone else already 'owns' the name
B/ harry potter etc prolly wont go down certain segments of US society

holding this in one hand is OK, but having the standard controller in the other is just plain dumb (I cant see it working well)

 

[Crossbar]

Coming from a non-english speaking country I completely understand why they choose Move instead of Arc or Wand. Move is a very simple word that even people with very little knowledge of the English langauge can easily relate to a and pronounce decently. Arc and Wand not so much.

Of course they could have gone with a meaningless word like Wii but for some reason they didn´t and in my book that´s OK, Move is consistent with the names of the other products in the PS family like Eye, EyeToy, DualShock etc.

 

[Rangers]

I wonder why the last-minute name change from Arc to Move? It's clear, as the snazzy looking logo on the controller looks like an A, that the main controller was going to be called Arc. Was the 2nd controller originally going to be called "Move" and not "Playstation Move Sub-Controller"? It makes sense, given that the primary function of the 2nd controller is to manage movement.

So why not stick with Arc for the main glowstick?

I have no idea if it's true, but I believe there were rumors floating around that "Arc" had possible trademark issues (specifically with MS in fact) so they just renamed it to avoid the whole problem.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I guess presentations are in the eye of the beholder. I thought the presentation was decent for GDC. GDC is suppose to be mainly for developers, right? It's not an E3 type of event. They mentioned 20 first party games that will come out this year. They, also, mentioned 36 companies that will be supporting the controller. How many games were shown at this conference? It wasn't near 20.

We know that there will be casual AND hardcore games that will be supported. Plus, we know there is no hefty lag with this controller from live and recorded tech demos. We even got to see pictures of the product in detail. It has what was rumored (an analog input via another wireless device). We even got a ballpark price of under $100 (PS Eye + Move + Game). PS Eye + Move will probably be around $60 to $70 (the game discs are usually $40 alone for the EyePet level of game). This, too, was in the expected range of most. But, somehow, the presentation was bad?

Most people said the controller scheme needs an analog control stick and it would be great. A lot of these same people (on GAF especially) keep adding new things to harp about. I get the feeling that these particular people could never be satisfied with Sony's presentation no matter what was shown. It seems like FFXIII Metacritic platform specific scores (unfair) once again.

 

[Rangers]

This press conference was livestreamed, which even X10 wasn't. That means to a certain extent if not mostly, it was made for the public. Especially given the videos and demos shown, not for developers.

I kind of see it as Sony's response to X10 and Nintendo's Feb 24th event.

X10 was said to be Microsoft's hardcore show so E3 could focus more on Natal, though. This was kind of the reverse.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

http://gizmodo.com/5489946/ikat-augmented-reality-app-works-without-real+world-prompt

That's pretty cool reminds me of the Anime Dennou Coil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennou_Coil ).

Regards,
SB

 

[chris1515]

No analogue stick and therefore no character movement...sucks, would have been perfect to have one Move with an analogue and the other as shown

Yes a second stick is needeed on the Psmove for the camera on a FPS. For the moment Playstation look like wii HD.

It will be a failure.

 

[obonicus]

Honestly, only the faithful will shift to playing FPS on this. The rest of us at best will try it out and then go to a scheme that doesn't involve moving our arms around as much. And as I said earlier, this will be Sony's strategy. Grabbing Wii ports and having developers implement wand controls as a gimmick in 3rd party games.

It's like E3 2009 all over again. None of us cared for motion controls before, why suddenly this pretense that it's the true path to amazing gameplay?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So what I got out of this so far is that you'll need...

PS3 eye + Move bundle.
Move subcontroller and/or another Move depending on game.

So to be able to do single player in all games you'll need to buy PS3 Eye + 2x Move + Move subcontroller. Which will be close to 150+ USD I'm guessing. PS3 Eye + Move bundle = 100. Addional Move + Move subcontroller = 50-100 USD.

And then you'd have to do that cost all over again for each additonal player. 2 player = Eye + 4x move + 2x subcontroller. 4 player = Eye + 8x move + 4x subcontroller.

Wow... That's some expensive multiplayer casual gameplay in the living room. They REALLY should have put a bulb on the subcontroller also if they were planning on releasing games that require 2x Move.

I'm thinking cost may end up moving this out of consideration for casual players.

Regards,
SB

 

[Crossbar]

Honestly, only the faithful will shift to playing FPS on this. The rest of us at best will try it out and then go to a scheme that doesn't involve moving our arms around as much. And as I said earlier, this will be Sony's strategy. Grabbing Wii ports and having developers implement wand controls as a gimmick in 3rd party games.

It's like E3 2009 all over again. None of us cared for motion controls before, why suddenly this pretense that it's the true path to amazing gameplay?

You should watch the video of the guy playing SOCOM, he doesn´t move his arms at all, just subtle movements of the hand. Not even when throwing grenades.

I am really curious about the FPS control scheme, I never got into FPS on consoles because I think mouse control is far superior. If the control scheme of Zipper´s SOCOM4 has any resemblance of mouse control I am all for it. But I will not pass any judgment until I have tried it myself.

 

[Crossbar]

So what I got out of this so far is that you'll need...

PS3 eye + Move bundle.
Move subcontroller and/or another Move depending on game.

So to be able to do single player in all games you'll need to buy PS3 Eye + 2x Move + Move subcontroller. Which will be close to 150+ USD I'm guessing. PS3 Eye + Move bundle = 100. Addional Move + Move subcontroller = 50-100 USD.

And then you'd have to do that cost all over again for each additonal player. 2 player = Eye + 4x move + 2x subcontroller. 4 player = Eye + 8x move + 4x subcontroller.

Wow... That's some expensive multiplayer casual gameplay in the living room. They REALLY should have put a bulb on the subcontroller also if they were planning on releasing games that require 2x Move.

I'm thinking cost may end up moving this out of consideration for casual players.

Regards,
SB

Wow..... That is some amazing jumping to conclusions based on the information that one bundle will cost less than $100.

 

[obonicus]

You should watch the video of the guy playing SOCOM, he doesn´t move his arms at all, just subtle movements of the hand. Not even when throwing grenades.

My point is still that people who are used to playing on controls won't suddenly find this amazing. Unless something remarkable happens, it'll be a gimmick.

 

[Rolf N]

You should watch the video of the guy playing SOCOM, he doesn´t move his arms at all, just subtle movements of the hand. Not even when throwing grenades.

I am really curious about the FPS control scheme, I never got into FPS on consoles because I think mouse control is far superior. If the control scheme of Zipper´s SOCOM4 has any resemblance of mouse control I am all for it. But I will not pass any judgment until I have tried it myself.

You can have a preview of this on the Wii. The pointer allows for great fps control schemes, most notably Metroid Prime 3 and the Call Of Duty games. The Sony version has more button inputs and higher pointing accuracy/stability as far as what was shown, so it should be another step up.