Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Motion control battle

Well today the last of the motion control options have come out in Microsoft Kinect. Sony Move came out about a month ago. I have been reading impressions of Kinect in reviews and from people who tried it out and it has lots of specific requirements for it. From what I have read it doesn't work to well. I don't know if it is just game companies not really getting a grasp of the system or if it just doesn't work too well.

As for Sony Move, I think it has the best chance of it working decently.
I read that it works well for some people and for others it doesn't so I'll look into that more.

As for the Wii and Motion + I think it works well. Until one of the other two show me that it works well then Nintendo is atop at this point.

Does anybody plan on picking up Move or Kinect or are you sticking with Wii?

3 comments:

EV said...

So far I've heard more favorable impressions of Move than I have for Kinect. Though to be fair Move is much more similar to the Wii so they had more of an established model to work off of.

I'm not sold on either yet but considering I tend to lean towards even Wii games with more 'traditional' controls I doubt I'll ever spend much time with either, especially Kinect.

Benjamin Fennell said...

I'm not going to be getting a PS3, so move is out, but I do pick up a 360, I'm passing on Kinect. Kinect just strikes me as a clunky attempt at something like the EyeToy, it doesn't seem to translate well into anything resembling substantive gameplay, and I haven't seen or heard of any case of it actually working remotely consistently. I don't see Move meaningfully taking off either - it's already pretty much known that Sony's been exaggerating its sales by boasting shipped numbers instead of actual units sold - since like Kinect, it isn't a standardized form of gameplay input.

Neither's really a threat to the Wii as neither Sony nor Microsoft had the guts to push anything innovative or original as a control standard this gen, and their rather conservative gamer bases - unprofitable as they are for most games released on their expensive consoles - won't buy motion peripherals and would be pretty angry if they tried to make them a standard. They're pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place as gaming continues to move forward, and I can't really see either lasting much longer as hardware producers, considering the incredible losses across the board this gen. As is, Move and Kinect have been nothing but cynical responses to the Wii in hopes of grasping at relevance, while neither company's got the kind of visionary leadership necessary to stay relevant. They couldn't just keep pushing the same basic controls with more and more impressive and expensive graphics forever - that was always going to eventually turn into the dead-end we've seen with them.

Anonymous said...

Here is the skinny from one first hand use and another 2nd hand from friend.

First off Kinect, Kinect is fun, it works and my kids have a great spastic time playing the prebundled game. The only thing is the space, you really need to play in the 6-8 foot range with 6 being the start, then you move into the 7 ft range. Its a requirement that will destroy the communities like Japan.
The sensor itself is self moving and it adjust its angle to work with who is playing.
Who is playing is the tricky part. Between 3 kids ages 9,7,2 (almost 3) it was hard to setup without frustration. (should of never happened) They were too loud, or my youngest one is so SHORT that it has a hard time catching him. (so we set it up and he can jump in but the auto recognize and distance setup at the start of the games doesnt work well here for him, but like I said if i get it started, really no probs)

Aside from all of that, its a fun system to use and the possibilities in the future are good.

Now lets move on... (heh)

Move, based on my wii impressions would of been the easiest slide to go into (but why get the same experience if you already have it?) My friend, Robert who is a bit of a heavier taller guy (who loves sony a lot btw) said that the move wasnt that good and it had problems in his apartment and the camera did too. He actually returned his controllers and said never mind.

(keep in mind he is a reviewer and by getting rid of the controllers he will not be getting any MOVE specific games now)

So, in my opinion the Kinect is the way to go if you have the space, but both systems seem to have issues with apartment setups. once i get my hands on move I will let you know what I think but If I remember correctly, the biggest fail on the move is the camera part. I will ask which site he has the review on, but still Kinect is fun and while it would be great for children, it was programmed with adults in mind.