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

[corduroygt]

As long as the PS3 is turning a profit then it's all good for Sony.
I know kinect is doing well but how many are being used,
I bought one last month and it's been used about twice. I wish I bought move instead to be honest.

Your move would be gathering dust too, trust me I got two.
I have a feeling that unless I can get used to move in FPS and be better than controller, it'll keep gathering dust. Maybe I'll get the sharp shooter if it helps, who knows. I am just doubtful that it can offer a better experience than controller.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Im a convert after KZ3, totally justified my purchase in one game cant wait for socom now (which i had no interest in before). It certainly can offer a better experience than a traditional controller.

 

[Nesh]

Your move would be gathering dust too, trust me I got two.
I have a feeling that unless I can get used to move in FPS and be better than controller, it'll keep gathering dust. Maybe I'll get the sharp shooter if it helps, who knows. I am just doubtful that it can offer a better experience than controller.

My Move got lots of use during the K3 beta and single player demo .

Its going to get more when I will get the full game.

My Kinect was also used 3 times since I bought it at the beginning of January. Now its just siting there. There are no good games released on it and so far its games to be enjoyed require another friend

 

[corduroygt]

My Move got lots of use during the K3 beta and single player demo .

Its going to get more when I will get the full game.

My Kinect was also used 3 times since I bought it at the beginning of January. Now its just siting there. There are no good games released on it and so far its games to be enjoyed require another friend

Can you play better with move than a controller? I'm just debating to myself whether it's worth putting the hours to get into.

 

[Nesh]

Can you play better with move than a controller? I'm just debating to myself whether it's worth putting the hours to get into.

There wast much released that support Move so like everyone else my experience is limited with it. But in regards to Killzone 3 aiming is much faster. The biggest difference though is in the experience. It is more fun with Move than with the standard controller and makes the experience much better.

Here is what you should mind between Move and a standard controller.

With a standard controller you know how the game is going to control and that it will control well. With Move, you need to calibrate it, and by doing so you must ensure that you calibrate it well. Otherwise it might not work as well as it should. Then there is the fact that for some the motion controller works better under settings A, for others it works better under settings B. This is one convenience that the controller has over Move.

Based on a few games that I have played, so far the Move implementation differs from game to game. Some implement it well some dont.

There was a FPS shooter demo in PSN which I didnt like at all with Move. But I loved Move in Killzone 3

Some games will feel differently than others with Move I guess.

With K3 it needs some experimentation to get used to it at first but I was surprised by how fast the learning curve is with that game. The most difficult thing to do in K3 while using Move is to turn because it depends on the turn speed and the deadzone area you have set. Sometimes when you are close to a dark wall in a dark room, trying to turn might get a bit confusing. You dont know where you are looking. But it is easier to aim and you will get used to turning in time and you wont want to go back to DS

Move accuracy also comes with two sides. Accuracy means that you can aim where you point at. Accuracy also means that if you dont have steady hands you will be shooting anywhere but the target

So you shouldnt point the controller like a lightgun in K3 (unless you have that sharpshooter thing that you hold with two hands and is kept steady on your shoulder I guess). It is recommended that you place your hand on your lap and move your hand in accordance to where you want to move the curson on screen. It is very steady that way and you are going to appreciate the accuracy and fast aim reaction that you cant replicate with a standard controller.

You have more maneuverability and more control with Move

Personally for K3 I prefer using Move than the Dual Shock thats for sure.

 

[Arwin]

There was quite a lot released already for Move actually, just not all communicated that well I think. I wouldn't be surprised if by now there are some 40-50 titles that support Move out there today (even for shooters you have M.A.G. and Modern Combat: Evolved or whatever it is called, though I didn't play any of those either).

Of course, few games match the AAA status of a Killzone, so in that respect this is a pretty big thing and kind of dwarfs all the other titles that support Move or got support patched in ...

Have to mention though that I'm surprised that out of all the titles released, it is The Fight: Lights Out that is the one that I'm still playing today, though in terms of total playtime, Sports Champions is probably still ahead. Gap is closing though, and I am probably going to keep playing this for a looooooooooong time. I've even had to double up my pillow because my upper body is broadening and getting stiffer.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Can you play better with move than a controller? I'm just debating to myself whether it's worth putting the hours to get into.

I recommend playing through the SP campain the first time with move. By the end you will be pretty good with it, had a lot more fun whilst learning, and not want to go back.

These are my settings, which i reccomend to anyone staring out:

H deadzone = 0
V deadzone = 50
Sensitivity = 0
Camera Lock = Camera

The settings are not all though, how you calibrate makes a big difference. If you find the reticule still a little jumpy even at 0 sensitivety overshoot the calibration markers slightly and it should make things even more stable.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I'm persuaded Sony should have waited with Move!

The more i think about it, the more i think Sony should have waited till now (Feb) to launch Move...

Launching first in Sept to get the game out before Kinect, whilst sounding good in concept, in reality didn't work too well. With the juggernaught that is MS and it's half a billion dollar marketing campaign on Kinect, Sony's Move just got simply smothered and suffocated over the holiday period.

I'm positively persuaded that it would have benefited Sony a great deal to let Kinect (& COD) have the holiday period. Especially given the fact that the original plan was to launch the device with Socom 4 as it's big launch title (which ended up getting delayed). Rather than waste marketing money on a September Move launch, only to see it forgotten about for three months after launch, they should have delayed it's launch till Feb to see it launch with KZ3 as it's big launch game and potential killer app.

Already we're at a point now, that all the smoke has cleared and people are seeing that beyond it's obvious uses for fitness & dance software, kinect is pretty useless at the moment for gaming when you don't have friends and family round (i.e. most of time). I think now would have been Sony's best time to launch Move, giving them in one game (KZ3) the primary reason to own the device. Not to mention all the 30-40+ other games with Move supported features.

Then again though, on the other hand i like the fact that i've had time to get used to playing games with Move (RE5 & MAG) so i for one am very excited at the prospect of playing KZ3 with it

 

[corduroygt]

Sony has been sitting on this tech for years. They should (and could) have released it two years ago actually, maybe along with the slim.

 

[patsu]

I wouldn't say Kinect is pretty useless. We may see useful and unique apps/games for Kinect later on. The same goes for Move. Takes time to work out these unconventional systems.

Launching Move last year is not a problem but I think they wasted the marketing. Kinect and Move may appeal to different people.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I wouldn't say Kinect is pretty useless. We may see useful and unique apps/games for Kinect later on. The same goes for Move. Takes time to work out these unconventional systems.

Launching Move last year is not a problem but I think they wasted the marketing. Kinect and Move may appeal to different people.

I would say that Kinect is pretty useless at the moment unless you have people round to play with (and even then it gets old fast). The dashboard usage is nothing special and unless you're into fitness & dance games there's little to nothing to play on your own with kinect. Of course there might get some interesting stuff released in future, but seeing there's nothing announced yet by MS aside from the TGS works-in-progress which may or may not even be released this year (or even be games at this point), if you're a gamer who likes to play core genre SP games and you own Kinect it's pretty useless to you right now.

Move isn't in the same boat as there's enough to try out and play with Move even now. And of course in the next few months you already have a confirmed line-up of core game experiences with firm release dates to look forward to. Not so for Kinect owners...

We might have to wait six months or more to see anything core release for Kinect, in which time Sony would have released a handful of it's biggest titles with Move support.

 

[Squilliam]

The more i think about it, the more i think Sony should have waited till now (Feb) to launch Move...

Launching first in Sept to get the game out before Kinect, whilst sounding good in concept, in reality didn't work too well. With the juggernaught that is MS and it's half a billion dollar marketing campaign on Kinect, Sony's Move just got simply smothered and suffocated over the holiday period.

I'm positively persuaded that it would have benefited Sony a great deal to let Kinect (& COD) have the holiday period. Especially given the fact that the original plan was to launch the device with Socom 4 as it's big launch title (which ended up getting delayed). Rather than waste marketing money on a September Move launch, only to see it forgotten about for three months after launch, they should have delayed it's launch till Feb to see it launch with KZ3 as it's big launch game and potential killer app.

Two things though.

1. Sony knew that 5M Moves would be sold so long as they had a passable game library to play by the end of last year. So why release your big hitters against a really low Move userbase when they can wait until the following year? There were reports of fabricated or real Move shortages regardless. They need to maximise the userbase who can play Move before they release the big Move titles which they have started to do this year.

2. Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo they don't have the novelty factor to make a massive advertisement campaign cost effective. Following on from the first point, if they have a good number of Moves on the ground by virtue of hardcore early adopters then they can use their only effective tool in their arsenal, word of mouth to drive further adoption beyond the early stage in Move's life cycle. They needed to release into 2010 so they can build 2011 into a great year for Move which will likely culminate with their actions towards the end of 2011 whatever they may be.

One thing I have noted about Move is that I believe it will enable Sony to do some sort of price adjustment whilst keeping their average sale price high. They don't want the people who are willing and able to buy a more expensive PS3 buying a lower price SKU, they only want the price sensitive people to do just that. For instance if they cut the price to $249 but have the Move SKU at $349 for instance with one extra game and Move their average sale price may only actually increase to $305 whilst increasing their sales at the same time. It has been the one of the disadvantages they have had thus far in the generation, their inability to offer two distinct compelling SKUs to enable them to price discriminate with their buyers as Microsoft has done.

 

[Prophecy2k]

2. Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo they don't have the novelty factor to make a massive advertisement campaign cost effective. Following on from the first point, if they have a good number of Moves on the ground by virtue of hardcore early adopters then they can use their only effective tool in their arsenal, word of mouth to drive further adoption beyond the early stage in Move's life cycle. They needed to release into 2010 so they can build 2011 into a great year for Move which will likely culminate with their actions towards the end of 2011 whatever they may be.

Squilliam you've won me over and i think you are correct in all but one of the points that you made (bolded above). If 'novelty' and 'innovation' oops:makes me sick every time i hear that word) are the only points on which a device or consumer product can be marketed or successful then marketing companies would go out of business and almost every product created and sold to consumers would fail.

I hear this a lot on the internet and frankly i think the view is a bit close-minded. But alas it's also the self same view which pervades the majority at large and seemingly Sony's own marketing dept as they pretty much gave up on doing much in the way of marketing PS Move properly in my opinion.

Move, just like any device or consumer product which takes what is an existing available consumer product and iterates on it to improve it, didn't need "novelty" or to be "innovative" to sell. It just needed software and for gamers who already own PS3's to be made aware of how much they "need" it and "should buy it". Good marketing doesn't need gimmicks to sell a product. If the product is worth it's asking price (which Move is IMHO) then "good marketing" should be able to sell it regardless. Sony did everything right in positioning Move to the core & casual gaming audience (although maybe not so much the casual audience yet due to lack of software). It was their marketing message that failed them IMHO. Move is the perfect alternative for a family who owns a PS3 and wants to experience motion controls like the Wii has. Move provides this and even more. Positioning Move as the "Wii for PS3" was IMHO the right thing to do, but were Sony failed was in communicating this to consumers.

Sony should have, knowing the obvious comparisons to the Wii would be made with Move, instead of trying to shy away from it, they should have embraced it with open arms. Effectively saying, "Yes! Move is like the Wii, but now it's for your PS3 and so you have a complete package. You can get rid of your Wii now". That for me would have been the stronger marketing message than the confused marketing campaigns they ran over the launch period.

 

[Squilliam]

Squilliam you've won me over and i think you are correct in all but one of the points that you made (bolded above). If 'novelty' and 'innovation' oops:makes me sick every time i hear that word) are the only points on which a device or consumer product can be marketed or successful then marketing companies would go out of business and almost every product created and sold to consumers would fail.

Sony should have, knowing the obvious comparisons to the Wii would be made with Move, instead of trying to shy away from it, they should have embraced it with open arms. Effectively saying, "Yes! Move is like the Wii, but now it's for your PS3 and so you have a complete package. You can get rid of your Wii now". That for me would have been the stronger marketing message than the confused marketing campaigns they ran over the launch period.

It is simply a lot easier to say 'Look! Our new/awesome interface will change the way you play games forever' than 'Hey! Our interface is just like that new/awesome interface you're familiar with except its better!'. That was the advantage that both Microsoft and Nintendo had with their respective launches. If you don't have that advantage the dynamics of that competition is a little different and you can't just roll into the market and take over unless yours offers a substantial and tangible improvement AND people have been conciously wanting/waiting for it. They simply have a different marketing problem by comparison and they responded accordingly. Their issues are compounded by the fact that it is difficult to prove that the Move interface is better in a 30s TV comercial and it is more difficult to display it in a retail setting when the physical controller can get stolen. This is the reason why they need people on the ground to take up their cause for them and tell people what Move is and show them how Move is a better interface. This is the reason why they went for the hardcore first whilst Nintendo and Microsoft to a lesser extent went straight for the mass market.

 

[Arwin]

500,000,000 in marketing
100,000,000 in R&D and licencing costs?

cost of Kinect $58, perhaps some more due to fixed licencing costs per peripheral?
Profit from sales between $42 and $50

10 million sold = a profit of 500,000,000
12 million sold = enough for Microsoft to recoup all costs? (probably with some margin)

Guess: 6 million Move peripherals sold. Perhaps a total margin of about $10-$20 per peripheral
= $60,000,000 to $120,000,000 in revenue. Deduct some marketing and software development overhead (Move team was very small, all licences owned by the team, but a fair effort was made to support Move in games)

Probably my numbers are off or even way off, but regardless I think there is a fair chance that both platform holders are looking to make a healthy profit from their motion controllers?

It also shows the value of marketing - if you can get the perceived value way above the manufacturing price, then you can make back your marketing investment really quickly.

 

[Prophecy2k]

It is simply a lot easier to say 'Look! Our new/awesome interface will change the way you play games forever' than 'Hey! Our interface is just like that new/awesome interface you're familiar with except its better!'. That was the advantage that both Microsoft and Nintendo had with their respective launches. If you don't have that advantage the dynamics of that competition is a little different and you can't just roll into the market and take over unless yours offers a substantial and tangible improvement AND people have been conciously wanting/waiting for it. They simply have a different marketing problem by comparison and they responded accordingly. Their issues are compounded by the fact that it is difficult to prove that the Move interface is better in a 30s TV comercial and it is more difficult to display it in a retail setting when the physical controller can get stolen. This is the reason why they need people on the ground to take up their cause for them and tell people what Move is and show them how Move is a better interface. This is the reason why they went for the hardcore first whilst Nintendo and Microsoft to a lesser extent went straight for the mass market.

I'm not sure we're really disagreeing here Squilliam. I agree that the marketing challenge is different for Sony, and i agree that it is word of mouth that will ultimately decide the device's fate (whether it ends up a moderate success or goes on to rule them all - my metric being level software support).

I don't disagree that it's harder demonstrate to consumers exactly how much better Move is than a Wii mote, however what i was trying to get at was that it's not for Sony to worry about that. Their marketing shouldn't have needed to show that Move is "better" than the Wii (even though it is). They merely needed to prove to consumers and their target core gamer demographic that it on their console they already own, it works, and works even better for the types of games they like to play. I'm merely saying that with a stronger launch lineup they could have had a stronger marketing message, as opposed to trying to flog a device last Sept as "more accurate than a Wii" with next to no software that can support that claim.

The advantages that Sony has with Move is that:

1) it works for more game types than a device like Kinect
2) it's more accurate than a Wiimote and thus works better for motion control (MC) games.
3) it's also available on a HD platform that hasn't had MC before (i.e. PS3).

Prior to Move launch if you were a gamer with a HD console, yet were interested in trying MC games you'd have to buy a Wii. There was no other option. With Move Sony provided a relatively inexpensive way of allowing MC games on the console that's already found it's way into 45million homes.

I agree that Sony selling Move to their installed base is a much better bet than trying to capture the casual mass market with a box that's at a significant price disadvantage to it's competitors.

I agree that Wii sold to the mass because it was new (and you could play mario on it), as well as Kinect selling to the masses because it was new and exciting (and hyped to high heaven, despite a dire launch lineup). I'm simply arguing that Move never needed to be new or innovative to sell well. It just needed to be proven to work with what it's core demographic is already acustomed to. Thankfully now with games like KZ3, Sony is demonstrating that. I just think that they should have bided their time to press on a strong marketing campaign now, rather than last year launching before Kinect which quickly swallowed up all mindshare.

 

[Prophecy2k]

500,000,000 in marketing
100,000,000 in R&D and licencing costs?

cost of Kinect $58, perhaps some more due to fixed licencing costs per peripheral?
Profit from sales between $42 and $50

10 million sold = a profit of 500,000,000
12 million sold = enough for Microsoft to recoup all costs? (probably with some margin)

Guess: 6 million Move peripherals sold. Perhaps a total margin of about $10-$20 per peripheral
= $60,000,000 to $120,000,000 in revenue. Deduct some marketing and software development overhead (Move team was very small, all licences owned by the team, but a fair effort was made to support Move in games)

Probably my numbers are off or even way off, but regardless I think there is a fair chance that both platform holders are looking to make a healthy profit from their motion controllers?

It also shows the value of marketing - if you can get the perceived value way above the manufacturing price, then you can make back your marketing investment really quickly.

Even if your numbers are off a little Arwin, i'd wager you're right and that Sony has made a hefty little sum on all the Move units sold so far. Also given that many consumers will only buy one Kinect, whilst PS3 owners can buy up to 3-4 Moves i can see them making a tonne more as the software support for the device picks up this year

 

[goonergaz]

It is simply a lot easier to say 'Look! Our new/awesome interface will change the way you play games forever' than 'Hey! Our interface is just like that new/awesome interface you're familiar with except its better!'. That was the advantage that both Microsoft and Nintendo had with their respective launches. If you don't have that advantage the dynamics of that competition is a little different and you can't just roll into the market and take over unless yours offers a substantial and tangible improvement AND people have been conciously wanting/waiting for it. They simply have a different marketing problem by comparison and they responded accordingly. Their issues are compounded by the fact that it is difficult to prove that the Move interface is better in a 30s TV comercial and it is more difficult to display it in a retail setting when the physical controller can get stolen. This is the reason why they need people on the ground to take up their cause for them and tell people what Move is and show them how Move is a better interface. This is the reason why they went for the hardcore first whilst Nintendo and Microsoft to a lesser extent went straight for the mass market.

Well TBH both Ninty and MS released a product that was an improvement on old technology. I had used lightguns before (Wii) and I had used eyetoy before (kinect) - where Sony went wrong (for me) was not pushing the augmented reality angle enough which would have underlined the difference.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I can't really blame them for not pushing the AR angle though... it isn't really all that appealing and as a technology has probably far less scope for implimentation in various game genres than things like MC, pointer control and full body motion tracking.

AR is a harder sell to people without the right software to prove it (Eyepet is great but has very very limited appeal). It also isn't a good fit with their target demographic the core gamer.

 

[goonergaz]

I can't really blame them for not pushing the AR angle though... it isn't really all that appealing and as a technology has probably far less scope for implimentation in various game genres than things like MC, pointer control and full body motion tracking.

AR is a harder sell to people without the right software to prove it (Eyepet is great but has very very limited appeal). It also isn't a good fit with their target demographic the core gamer.

Yes, I just wonder if Sony missed a trick tho...maybe they should have been looking at more ways to implement AR into gaming, it's odd because obviously there's loads of examples with all the eyetoy games. I guess my point was that that would be totally different to Wii (being able to put you into the game with a weapon)