The non-standard game interfaces discussion thread (move, voice, vitality, etc.)

I don't agree with almost any of this. Let's collate some of these points.

1. People don't want to get Move, because they can do all these games with the DS3.

I disagree completely. The success of the Wii is primarily because people do want to play games with a different controller. Nintendo made all these Nintendo titles for the GameCube as well. As for interest among existing PS3 owners, well ...

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=58085

2. Tacking on motion controls onto an existing genre doesn't work

Obviously tacking on motion controls to an existing genre doesn't necessarily work, no. But there are a fair few game types where the dualshock is the controller that has been 'tacked on', and it's been a long and hard process in some cases to make that workable. Basically, everything that was originally designed to do with the mouse that has moved to consoles is an example of 'dualshock controls tacked on' by your definition, and only work now because of a long period of refinement. Contrast that with a pointer like the wii - even the limited pointer of the Wii sans + was fairly successful for first person shooters. The main bottleneck here seemed more that noone wanted to trade HD console graphics and online functionlaity for Wii graphics and online functionality in this genre. But that's just fps - there have been games for all sorts of games (sports like golf, tennis, bowling, etc.) long before motion controls were around for which a motion controller just makes a tonne more sense and is much less of a 'tacked on' style experience than a 1:1 motion controller.

3. PS3 doesn't have the library of Motion Control games.

50+ games gaining support so far in the first 6 months isn't bad. If you take the best selling genres across the Wii platform, the PS3 has pretty decent alternatives these days for most of them. There are plenty of games among there that are Move specific, and of the genre that people bought the Wii for, so they wouldn't be buying it for just playing the same games either. And for the rest, see my answer to the two points above.

4. Kids will still be better off with the Wii, particularly on a secondary non SD tv

Probably, yes. They may be even better off with just a DS. But the age at which a PS3 is accessible to them and the range of games that are accessible to them goes down thanks to the Move controller. Super Rub-a-Dub was a great success with small children (3-6yo). Kids from friends in our street tended to walk past our window at some point asking their parents if they could play the Duck game again, or the Dancing game (I had the DDR mat out there for a while).

Killer app probably not no. But the genre (including Civilisation c.s.) used to be very popular. It's a perfect example of a mouse control method that didn't translate well to dualshock, despite some valiant efforts recently.

Yeah? The Wii expanded the market thanks to its motion controls, but now all grannies are playing Mario Galaxy? I think not. I'm even willing to bet that a lot of the non motion controller games that are popular on the Wii right now are popular because of their handheld heritage more than anything else.

Maybe. But don't forget that Playstation 1 and 2 sold more than double what the Wii sold so far. So maybe Nintendo's market demographic isn't as expanded as you think, or otherwise maybe Sony's platform has enough potential to have and get the games people want to play.

I'm sure that if you read that again, you'll see that you're not making sense anymore.

And they aren't?

Because the Wii hardware lacks the capability to deliver on that front.

The same held for Motion controls when the Wii came to market. Except of course there were hints, like the success of gun controllers, dance mats, etc. Such hints have been there for the PS3 too - EyeToy and PS Eye games have been popular among casuals, but their application was too limited to make it to really mass-market figures (although it did very well in Europe regardless, and part of the limit for world-wide appeal was disinterested on the part of SCEA and SCEJ).

Then explain to me why the point of saturation for the Wii is at half the point of saturation of the PS1 or PS2?

I agree that this is unproven, but we will see. I already indicated that I didn't think we'd see a big change, but I remain pretty convinced that Kinect and Move have a big potential of denting the Wii sales. It's the first time the Wii gets true competition in this area. I already stated that the Wii has three important factors, in no particular order:

1. Motion controls
2. Nintendo games
3. Price

I think that Sony is in a good position now to challenge at least 1. Challenging 2 may also be possible, partly because I rate Sony's first party studios differently than you (although I share some of your criticism, I think games like Start the Party, Sports Champions, LBP, Modnation Racers, Singstar and Buzz have good potential to compete for at least part of Nintendo's audience), and if Nintendo maybe still has some appeal for the kids, families exist of adults too. Also, motion controls now being a mult-platform affair, it is easier for third party developers to develop titles that can compete on all platforms.

And while it doesn't prove anything, I have a few colleagues with a PS3 who were considering getting a Wii for their kids as well, but are now just going to get Move. It doesn't prove anything, but it doesn't disprove anything either. People say that peripherals don't sell if they're not included at launch, but there are a tonne of examples of that not being true, not the least of which is the dual analog controller itself. I remember very well when I bought that controller as a replacement/supplement to my grey old little joypad.

At the beginning of the Wii's lifecycle, there were plenty of people saying that it was a 'fad' that would pass. You're one of the very few though who still thinks motion controls are a fad at this point. You must, in all honestly, be pretty much blind to see why motion controls worked so well and how they were key in expanding the market, and that they are never going to go away ever again.

Sure. But against that are a lot of the same arguments - next year Nintendo will launch the 3DS, so it is highly unlikely that a Wii successor will launch before 2012. Do you think that the current 360 and PS3 base will then jump into that platform? This Wii will either have the same performance as the current HD consoles, in which it can hope for a few ports of the existing HD library, but in general will have a tough time competing with the vast library that these two consoles have already ammassed, or Nintendo will launch something 'next-gen', in which case it will take longer for third parties to develop titles for it, especially when they are completely uncertain what their market will be - it's a big gamble to assume that hardcore HD gamers will jump ship to Nintendo rather than wait the 1-2 years for next gen 360 and PS3.

The way I see it, hardcore and casual are currently fairly neatly split into two (although there is a fair bit of overlap in the middle, with certain sports game genres that should be classified as casual still being more popular on HD consoles, and some hardcore Nintendo titles drawing in non-casuals on the Nintendo front).

The key question may well be: is it easier for the HD consoles to open up to the casual crowd, or is it easier for the SD console to open up to the hardcore crowd? I think the HD consoles have the advantage in anything but price right now, but as soon as these consoles go under $300 (which the 360 is at already), this advantage will become less and less relevant.

Like I said though, the 360 will need to work hard at getting the software competitive enough and may run into trouble with controls that they can't offer an easy equivalent on versus the WiiMote, while for the PS3 the Move controller handily outperforms anything that the Wii can do (ok, speaker on the controller excepted), has a good pedigree of games and very quickly expanding library of games that support the Move, but still needs to get the PS3 + Move combo to go under $300.

But they don't need to do everything perfect to steal some of Wii's market. That they will steal some of the market is without question, imho. The real question of course is whether it will be a significant portion or not. And that's the one of two points that I do agree with you, that it is by no means a certainty that this will be a significant portion.

 

But it is only the blob avatar, which has always been available as part of the output of the Move SDK's library. It's an examle of my point that Kinect brings the player into the virtual world (augmented virtuality) rather than the other way around (augmented reality). What's new is that they are mapping the original colors onto there somehow. I don't know if that's just a switch in the SDK now or something else.

 

It's the video feed of the visual camera, no? Also PrimeSense's tech describes matching the video feed with the depth info. I consider it a given both data streams are available to use as the developer wants.

 

I think you are confusing Microsoft with Sony.

 

I thought it was the same 3D map, but with different colors (i.e. the real ones), not just a cardboard cutout from the video image?

 

I think you are confusing SCEE at the beginning of this generation with SCEE now... at launch i'd have completely agreed, but SCEE has made great strides and currently tries to match or even exceed the efforts of SCEA in many cases.

If you live in the Asian territory and were indeed referring to SCEJ however, then i'll concede as i have no idea how well they're doing

 

Proportionately the attach rate for many of their Gamecube and N64 titles are pretty similar to the attach rate on the Wii. The games were already huge, its just that they needed the market share to show it off. Wii Fit is a huge exception at near 50% attach rate, but thats not something Move is attempting to replicate.

I wouldn't trust a poll of hardcore gamers about anything, especially technophiles.

What about games which are already available on DS3? Does having Move make replaying Heavy Rain for instance worthwhile if you've already played through 2-3 times already? Does it add much to someones experience when they have been using the analogue stick for 5-10 years already? So whilst Move as an interface does have value, the question still has to be raised about whether it adds enough value for enough people to consider using it. Beyond the seasoned gamer, is it going to have enough adoption for someone who is unfamiliar with current controllers to even have the opportunity to play one? Its not enough that people buy one for themselves, but for the system to spread, people need to buy 2-3 Move controllers so their friends can experience it first hand. Online gaming may be more fun to some, but its offline gaming which sells the systems.

That cannot stand up to Nintendos evergreen titles. The ones which sell year after year and from console to console because they simply never seem to age. I have seen nothing which would be good enough to sell 3M on the Wii, so why would they move systems and controllers for Sony?

No parent is going to buy a PS3 with Move for their kid. Ok sorry, not no parent but a vanishingly small proportion relatively to the ones who buy their kids the Wii. The difference in library and the difference in the perception of the console is staggeringly different.

Its popularity hasn't really waned, its just other genres and gaming as a whole got bigger and expanded beyond the original enthusiasts.

Their handheld heritage didn't help the Gamecube sell more than 1/4 of the GBA systems sold.

Wii = 70M, PSX = 100M, PS2 = 140M. The Wii is currently ahead of the PS2 launch aligned in the same market with both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are doubling the sales or more than the previous generation also ran consoles. How can you not say the market is expanded? Besides, much of the recent difference for the PS2 comes from markets the Wii hasn't even released into.

Sony games have struggled with low attach rates, Nintendo games never have which is why such a big difference between them exists.

Kinect is completely different from the standard controller, it doesn't compete to provide the same experiences and utility.

I can't prove a negative.

The PS2 never lacked the capability to deliver on that front. It also happens to be the 2nd best selling console of this generation from 2005.

See above.

1. The importance of the motion controls was accessibility and not intimidating the audience. The motion controls are there to make up for the lack of buttons as much as they are there to provide new experiences. The Wiimote was designed to look like a remote control, I.E. familiar to people. Move looks intimidating to the same audience by comparison. Beyond that they cannot replicate Nintendos two best selling motion games, Mario Kart and Wii Fit with their controller.

2. For what its worth they are mostly 2nd party games you listed. Anyway Modnation Racers launched without an easy difficulty setting and massive loading times. Little Big Planet was nowhere near as good as NSMB and I presume Donkey Kong and Kirby will both also be excellent. Singstar never sold more than a million or two on PS2 and that audience hasn't upgraded to PS3 based off the PS3 versions sales. Buzz is a quizz game but aside from that I can't say, and party games are hit and miss. Sony makes excellent core game titles but I have never seen them make a casual title sell to even 3M copies.

The Wii Fit peripheral sees little use and it has 50% attach rate. Even if it does sell, it doesn't mean that they will get used. Theres also the possibility that they won't sell well enough... Its something you'd have to wait and see on.

Huh? I was talking about the generation. I.E. We're past the peak and things go downhill from here, then we have a new generation and a new product life-cycle.

Casual is a reflection of the user, not on the game played. You can be a casual player of Halo or a hardcore player of Wii Sports if you wanted.

snip... I think thats enough!

 

But why does Nintendo have the market share to show it off this time? Simple point is, Wii Sports basically has a 100% attach rate. Wii Play is also huge, and although being packed in with the second controller has a lot to do with that, these two games are the most prominent games in households. But once we are discussing Mario Kart and NSMB, what do you think is more likely as a reason for selling well? That these games got good reviews? That these games got good word of mouth from other gamers? That the Wii userbase knew about these games because of the GameCube? Or that the Wii userbase knew about these games because of the omnipresent Nintendo Gameboys and DSs? This is, as far as I am concerned, a rhetorical question.

That this says little about the validity beyond 3D is true, obviously - there are too few Wii-only gamers here to be representative of anything . It is enough though to falsify at the very least that this is no factor whatsoever, and may even be respresentitive enough for at least existing PS3/360 owners.

Why is that relevant though? I'm working with the assumption that Move makes playing Heavy Rain more accessible and therefore more likely to be played by someone who isn't already comfortable with the DS3. I don't have to bother handing the DS3 to my wife or most of our visitors, but I'd definitely be more comfortable with handing them a Move controller.

Also, of those who have played through Heavy Rain, most of them have done that just once. They may be interested in trying again with the Move controller, since a) it's free, b) it's interesting to see whether the experience is different with the Move, and c) it's interesting to see if and how much the story unfolds differently this second playthrough.

Then there are those who haven't played Heavy Rain yet, and who may now be more interested. I personally held off playing Heavy Rain because I thought it was too depressing at the time, but now with the summer behind me and with Move controls, I'm willing to give it a try.

I happen to think so. If you've used the analog stick for that long, you may be aware of its strengths and weaknesses, and easily spot where the Move is adding something or not. Something that's come to bore you because no further progress has been made in the genre may become interesting again because of innovations in controls. Of course there are also going to be people who'll want to stick with dual analog for either some, or even all of their gaming. The same however was true for the transition from d-pad to DualShock.

The answer is a clear yes. I've seen this with my racing wheels, with DDR mats, with Gun controllers, with Microphones, with sixaxis controls in games like Motorstorm, Flower, Super Rub-a-dub, and PS Eye games like Operation Creature Feature (where Flower was the hardest for most, because they had to get used to the camera zooming out when you started moving). Even the iPod Touch / iPhone is clear proof of this, with my wife and my then 1 year old child having no trouble using it. The reason is simple enough - the closer a user interface's controls matches your existing motor skills, the more intuitive their application becomes in games.

Surely if I just had one Move controller it would be sufficient to let my friends experience Move by just handing them that one controller and standing back?

The Playstation 2 had those titles too. The Playstation 1 had those titles too. There were more third-party titles among those, but that's irrelevant and speaks as much for as against the platform.

You're just not very well aware of sales, I think. Singstar has sold more than 16 million units in the PAL region. Buzz wasn't far behind. SCEA and SCEJ just neglected to see their potential. SCEA in fact only really launched these series by the time the PS3 was already on the market.

Which brings back the question, why is the Wii different? Answer: motion controls were vital.

The market is expanded for sure, but only when the Wii goes over the 140M can we say that it has expanded the market covered by the Playstation 2, and currently it's only half-way. There is no guarantee it will continue to sell that long. It may well do it, but it needs 70M more before we can even start talking about the Wii market being expanded over that of the Playstation 3.

You say this as if it is a compliment, but you'd have to argue first that the Move doesn't provide completely different experiences from the standard controller as well as offering equivalent or better experiences for things that the standard controller currently does. In other words, it may just mean that Kinect is more limited in its application (which, while I clearly see that Kinect can do some things none of the other controllers can, is something I believe).

1. Move has less buttons than the Wii-Mote.
2. Why do you believe Move can't do Mario Kart just as well or better than the Wii-Mote? (apart from that the Dualshock already has those kinds of motion controls which are also available as such in various racing games)
3. Wii Fit is a separate peripheral and can't be done with the Wii-Mote.

So what are you saying, that the Wii will never reach 140 Million?

Again, I'm going to restate that I believe that Nintendo has a firm grasp on the younger audience, and they will not lose it easily, thanks to their strong position in the handheld space, that for this audience has remained nearly unchallenged (the PSP being the best non Nintendo handheld, but has so far been clearly targeted at and reaching a more mature audience who have probably used it for non-gaming as much as gaming at that). Console and game sales for this audience are still shifting more to handheld games, which is strikingly obvious in Japan, but is a visible trend also in the other regions. But again, I'm gonig to restate that I believe motion controls help Sony and Microsoft to get to a better position to challenge that market. The average age for gamers is actually well into the 20s, and if you can get one console to satisfy the whole family, the 360 and PS3 have now become a more viable option. But we're talking percentages here, and it will take quite some time before we'll be able to talk double figures, if ever.

Here we agree.

 

The thing is, this argument reminds me a lot about the mouse + keyboard vs controller arguments. So many points are made about the accuracy of the mouse and the utility of the keyboard and yet it seems that more FPS games are played in the west on analogue sticks than mice. Sure the interface isn't brilliant for everything but it is good enough for most applications.

Having multiple controllers of different types is a complication in terms of charging and it does skew the cost/benefit ratio. I don't believe that the Wiimote or Move is ideal because the latter isn't the primary controller and neither can fully reconcile the old genres with the new. I believe we're still short a few innovations to make the Wiimote model work for all genres, with the Move merely being a refinement of the Wiimote I simply don't believe we're there yet.

My point, to reiterate it again is this: You need to be succesful to be successful in the gaming business. It a chicken/egg thing where you want roast dinner and bacon and eggs at the same time. Sixaxis hardly got used and that came with the PS3! I forgot it even had motion controls, so little did it even get used. The iPhone is successful which is why people get introduced to it which drives even more success. Move has to be successful before it can be successful for the same reasons.

Is that common enough for you to expect it to drive adoption? Do people come to other peoples houses and play games by themselves on their equipment?

Over 26 titles for Singstar 11 for Buzz, many of which were standalone content packs in the years before DLC. Also it doesn't give people much in the way of a reason to upgrade to a PS3 as the titles are more than good enough on the PS2 and have their own peripherals.

Those motion controls are useless without the stellar games Nintendo has. Third parties have struggled to find similar success on the Wii, does Sony really have that much of an advantage over third parties? Especially as they do not seem to be willing to devote their main studios to producing Move only content.

The PS2 sold 100M, Xbox 24M and GC 21M over the course of the generation up until the end of 2006, thats 145M overall. This generation has sold 72M Wii, 40M 360 and 35M PS3 or 147M and will likely sell at least another 50M consoles by the end of 2011. You have to consider the whole of the market and not just what the leading console sold. Technically you could also throw in 42M PS2 sales for this generation and about half that many PS1s for last generation as well.

1. Move has more buttons accessible at once, but they are smaller than the A button on the Wiimote.
2. Because on one side theres a giant lightbulb.
3. But it can be done with Kinect for instance. Its too big to not have a copy / alternative for.

Probably not. I don't see Nintendo cutting the price again. They would release a new console far before that happens. Since the Wii so happens to be down YOY with a price cut and down in comparison to 2008 they are probably considering their options. They are far too fond of their hardware margins at this point and I remember them stating they wanted to train people out of waiting for price cuts.

Actually its the iPod/Touch/Pad group which is the number two for handheld gaming...

I don't disagree with you here.

 

No it can't. WiiFit detects your weight and centre of mass in 2 dimensions. Kinect can do fitness games using video only I guess, but that's not where WiiFit gets it's core mechanic (losing weight over time) or accuracy from. Also, PSEye could do exactly the same thing, visually. Neither can do what WiiFit does.

 

The reason is cause they dont give the user the choice to use mouse or controller, I believe only UT3 on the ps3 has the choice. Sony/MS should of pushed this more IMO

http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-against-pc.html

 

I think that story is bunk. Maybe the contest he mentions actually happened (I doubt it) but the idea that MS dropped PC vs. console because of it seems suspect.

 

Came across this interesting video that contrasts Wii Sports Resort table tennis with Sports Champions on PS3. I don't necesssarily agree with the conclusion that the superiority is technical rather than because Sports Resort is programmed to just be very casual friendly, but it's a very clear example of the difference between the two (noting that Sports Champions also has an Easy mode that has a lot of assists):

 

Actually, one that is very nicely explained in an article I just came across:

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/gen...-part-2-motionplus-and-the-myth-of-11/390146/

It also answers another quesiton we had, about if Motion+ enhances pointer precision, which it does.

 

The end of that video demonstrates exactly what I disliked about the intial Wii experience, and it's disappointing to see Motion+ didn't really address it in WSR. I think most core gamers will always be looking to address their own gameplay to improve, which in Wii's games all-to-often makes no difference as there's so much by way of assists, what the player does is almost irrelevant. Just keep the Wiimote moving.

This vid from the blog shows what Wiimotion+ could really do if used as such. It's quite shocking the difference between potential and what actually gets used!

I wouldn't say it enhances pointing, but tracking. Pointing at the screen is still based on the position of the two IR signals. Motion+ is enabling better off-screen tracking for a moment before errors become overwhelming, or just simplistic rotational effects.

 

Yes, but if your TV is big (enough) or sit close to the TV you'll run into problems with precision and tracking way before you reach the edge of the screen. And even under good conditions I think the triangulation by itself isn't as precise as when it is enhanced with the rotational data coming from the wii-mote? Remember that the camera in the Wii-Mote is very low resolution.

 

Hmm...I dunno, it seems like a lot of that is still far from actual 1:1 motion, even though they claim it to be. If anything, I think that actually illustrates the differences between M+ and Move better than the last video.

 

Where in the sword vs. dummy demo is it not behaving the same as Move?