Playstation Move - A step in the right direction?

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Playstation Move - A step in the right direction?

Since the Nintendo Wii released back in 2006, Sony and Microsoft have been hard at work trying to create some form of competition for the Nintendo Wii’s unique user interaction. Boasting the first ever true motion capture console, the Nintendo Wii managed to do something other consoles have never even considered. It particularly appealed to people that had never played video games before, people that have never even heard of the term gamer. This created a massive untapped market for the Nintendo Wii, an area that Microsoft and Sony couldn’t afford to ignore. It took them both a few years but now Sony has answered the Wii’s challenge and released the PlayStation Move.

The Playstation Move features state of the art technology to deliver a next generation of gaming interaction via a wand type control pad using Bluetooth. The technology behind Playstation Move is mind boggling so we've sectioned it below for ease of digestion.

Controller
Probably the first thing you’ll notice about the Playstation Move controller is the big blue orb at the top. The Orb is full of LED lights that can be dynamically chosen by the system depending on the environment which allows for precision tracking from the Playstation Eye. The size of the LED light as well as the spherical shape of the orb allows the Playstation Eye to track you three dimensionally, creating high precision, low latency interaction. The control pad itself is filled with sensors; it includes two inertial sensors, a three-axis linear accelerometer and a three axis rate sensor. Not sure what any of that does? Basically, as you frantically swing your control pad around trying to deliver that final blow, the various sensors allow the system to pick up your exact movements, angles and rotations.

Playstation Eye
A very important component in the Playstation Move setup, the Playstation Eye picks up all your movement directly from the control pad via Bluetooth. The camera has a wide angle lens with two different ways of visualizing its environment. It can easily adapt to close up wide views or narrow and small views capturing a 56-degree and 75-degree viewing angle. There is also a noise canceling microphone which could possibly detect a person’s three dimensional location via voice but has yet to be used in any current applications. All of this information is collected, analyzed by the Playstation 3 using Bluetooth 2.0, and all of the processing of the information comes from the CPU itself which allows for latency free information transfer.

This new technology has opened up a whole new way to develop content for video games. Previously designers were constantly trying to ram as many features into a game as possible, and this new, exciting technology has allowed developers to create fun, unique games that don’t always necessarily need hundreds of features and days of game-play. A large number of Playstation 3 games already support the Playstation Move but very few games have launched that require Playstation Move to play. One of these titles, Sports Champion, a game that is widely offered free with the Playstation Move control set, has received great reviews from critics and players, with entire families sitting down to interact with each other and enjoy the great quality graphics and unique play-style of these new Playstation Move titles. This could very well be what the next generation of video games is all about.

The technology behind video games and consoles is one of the fastest developing industries on the planet. It was only 20 years ago that we were all getting excited over the next generation graphics of the Super Nintendo (released 1990-1992), then we were wowed by the awesome power of the Nintendo 64 (released 1996) followed by what seemed to be an explosion in technology with the release of the GameCube, Playstation 2, Dreamcast and Xbox. This is what 20 years of gaming has given this generation of players; imagine what kind of games we’ll be playing in 20 years time?

With all the big industry players investing heavily in new, unique ways of interacting with video games, how long is it going to be before all this new technology is featured in consoles right from the factory? No need for wireless gadgets and gizmos, the future of gaming will detect your every move and sound to create a virtual reality experience. If anyone is going to jump on this market, it’s the Playstation 4. Always at the heart of every gaming evolution, Sony have always been the top dog according to the large majority of gamers. Can we expect the next generation of Playstation to offer us virtual reality? Imagine physically having to sneak around your living room while trying to strangle unsuspecting victims in the next generation of Metal Gear. The sky is the limit and the possibilities are endless. Come and tell us what you think the next generation of this new technology can offer the gamers of tomorrow.