Sunday, November 14, 2010

Is PS move a Wii clone? Or is xbox 360 kinect a PS2 eyetoy clone?

There's been what seems like a smear campaign against the playstation 3 move, or perhaps just ignorance calling it a "wii clone". Yes every new console has some similarities. Believe me, although the idea of using your hands for motion may be the same, other than that it is completely different. What's important is the gameplay and the experience that you get either completely change the way gaming is played like with first person shooters. FPS take use of a navagation controller (or you can use a regular sixaxis controller in your left hand and it's actually easier than it sounds) to move your character forwards, sideways, or backwards, while using the move to aim, shoot, and also use the buttons to switch weapons. Or in the case of other sports games, it makes the game feel like you're actually doing it in real life, like with sports champions table tennis. Play pingpong on wii sports resort and then play table tennis for PS move and you will be blown away at how more realistic the experience is. If you were to play wii sports plus, I imagine your actual pingpong game would not improve much. But if you do it on the PS3, It's so real that your actual pingpong experience improves. Go back to Wii and it just isn't like you're actually playing, but is more like a videogame again. Granted Wii motion plus does add a little something and make is have some aspects that seem somewhat realistic but it does NOT compare as it still uses 2 dimensional infrered technology ultimately to determine it's input even with the ability to detect tilt it's not enough to compare.

The future of gaming is not always games, but simulations and real life experience of things people either can't do given the situation (it's hard to get a game of table tennis going at the drop of a hat, and try playing a game of golf when it's dark out, you can't do it), or things that people don't want to do in real life due to risks they may not take. (Personally, I don't feel driving 200 MPH in nascar, or near 200 in gran turismo's windy roads is something I would feel comfortable with in real life, nor do I wish to fight in wars in real life, or fight a dogfight in the sky on a f16, but a simulation of the experience where I can blow up and walk away without an injury, awesome!). Playstation move makes it a simulation. Kinect is great because it can do some things like soccer and dancing games, but lets face it, the games that involve your feet aren't going to give you full emersion into that experience because you cant run full speed without smashing into a tv. You can run in place, you can kick if you clear enough room. But when you want to rest and play while you sit down, there are plenty of games that let you do that for the playstation move that aren't there for the kinect. Kinect definately offers somethings. I do find it interesting to play without a controller but it's not something that I would do all the time for every game, and I personally don't think it is the future of gaming. If the future of gaming is without a controller it will be because of brainwave and brain feedback with EEG machines that figure out your brainwaves, and also electrodes that stimulate back your brain so you experience the sensations. I cannot see people wanting to "air drive" a car, or "air ping pong" with their hand unless they're playing hand ball. Yes there's plenty of games for the kinect if you want it that add something.


Now if you think the Playstation move is a wii clone, or your sick of those who claim that, you may find this funny.

Playstation Eyetoy for playstation 2 had a toy called "kinetic" not kinect, "kintetic". Not only does it sound similar, but look at it.



Does that not remind you of the kinect? LOL, it does to me. Yes, it's completely tue that this is a technology that is inferior and is only a motion sensor camera. If you are moving to touch something on the screen it doesn't matter if there's depth or not. But for actual gameplay can someone tell me what the kinect adds other than disassociation from the character? (Rather than you being the character you are more like the controller performing a sort of voodoo on the character to make him move as you move) The timing of it probably means the kinect will sell more than the eyetoy did because after the breakthrough in playstation 1's dance dance revolution, and PS2 following up along with other systems, and Nintendo Wii gaining momentum with a major advancement in motion technology, the Nintendo Wii brought a ton of NEW people into gaming that had never heard of PS eyetoy and got them accustomed to motion gaming, and so the kinect SEEMS new. And people that see a commercial don't really get that the playstation move has a camera that can detect 3d exact 1:1 gaming, meaning you get the exact motions you make, rather than just timing a release point and hoping the game doesn't glitch and think you're putting spin on it when you're not and guessing about your motion, it's exactly 1:1, it knows everything you do. As for xbox kinect vs playstation 3 move, let alone playstation eye toy, I don't really see how the actual gameplay of kinect is that different from playstation 2 eyetoy games. Yes the xbox 360 is an upgrade even though both play at 60 frames per second, the xbox360 has better graphics than the PS2 as does the PS3. Xbox360 has voice recognition and facial recognition (but eyetoy had gesture recognition). But seriously when you're playing a game, what does it really add? I see some potential what it could add, but I haven't seen it yet. If you were to play kickball it wouldn't just measure whether or not you kick the ball but how hard, what direction and what was the timing of it. Soccer is definately a game that if I liked, I would love the kinect. Outside of that though, I haven't seen enough to convince me that xbox kinect is that great yet, especially to justify a higher price tag than the move. I admit some games would be cool for awhile, but I really think novelty will wear off eventually, and the game that is the most versitile about controls, that can just be a camera, that can be a controller, that can provide feedback and everything else is going to be the one that wins. Time will tell.

I can certainly tell you what playstation move adds to gameplay. It can add the realistic graphics of the playstation 3 that the wii does not have, yet provide everything the wii has in motion gaming... PLUS it adds a whole new level of accuracy and percision making the games go from games to actual simulated experiences. The kinect is going off out of the blue taking a huge risk for something that only adds something for foot based games. Globally soccer is very popular so I wouldn't completely be surprised to see the Xbox kinect have a lot of success, but as an american company selling primarily to the market of americans, who probably care the least about soccer, I think microsoft would be better suited selling to the playstation which has more global exposure, but I don't blame them for looking to expand in their global markets, and this could be the thing that helps. Additionally dance games are popular and may bring gaming to more female markets and will compete more in the family market.

The playstation move is stunningly accurate. It also can make your first person shooter games MORE precise movement than a mouse for aiming, while giving you buttons to press when needed, a trigger button like a joystick, percise aiming and a completely different, but still natural feel to your play, and realistic gaming. A mouse is 2 dimensional corresponding to a 2 dimensional screen that attempts to show 3 dimensional depth. But a mouse cannot always move, especially on an old pad where you want to, you have to pick them up and move them around, and it's just not the future. For kinect, I don't think aiming my finger at a camera making "pew pew pew" noises or saying "shoot shoot shoot" seems like something I want to be doing. Driving might work while putting my hands in front of my face and "air driving" but seriously is that really going to feel like driving if you have to stand up and  pretend to half sit while not feeling vibrations when you smash into cars? How do you gas and break? Some games need buttons. Yes wii has motion gaming plus buttons, PS3 has motion gaming plus buttons. But if you honestly believe the playstation move is a wii clone, than it is no more so a wii clone than an xbox kinect is a playstation eyetoy clone.

Now for a bit of a history lesson. Although in the late 1980s Nintendo started motion technology with the "power pad" it wasn't until playstation 2 had the dance dance revolution pad and playstation eyetoy that motion gaming really took off. In 1999 the eyetoy was demonstrated at a game developers conference. In 2003 the eyetoy was released in some places in the world such as europe and US and 2004 it was released in japan. In 1999 DDR was made for arcade use and later convered to playstation 1 where it sold over 3 million copies. It was then later made for PS2 and other gaming platforms.

Nintendo Wii then responded by recognizing this craze, and they created an entire system dedicated to motion gaming. Playstation just continued it's progression of the eyetoy only blew both their own and the wii out of the water.

This next video is a bit harsh towards the xbox... Xbox Kinect offers great things for soccer games, leg sports (soccer, track and field, kickboxing), running games, family games, and if you don't mind "air driving" as opposed to getting feedback through buzzing, driving games work fine as do other hand motion games. But it shows briefly some of the percision accuracy you can get with playstation.







What the video doesn't show is the experience you can get. I played table tennis on sports champions for playstation move and I felt like I was actually getting the exact experience of playing. When I hit the ball the controller vibrates based on how I hit it, but with 1:1 accuracy it means the paddle moves wherever I move. There's only 2 hundreths of a second delay and it's only enough to barely be consciously aware of if you REALLY REALLY move fast and you really watch it carefully it's almost not detectable. Old TVs are said to be closer to 4 hundreths of a second delay which could be problematic, but my TV is 6 or 7 years old and I expected to see a delay and I couldn't even tell until I really looked and even then, I'm still not convinced there is one.



You get a real expereince. You can play sitting down if you want. You can play standing up if you want. You can play games that only need subtle movements. Really the plystation 3 move adds a lot. Wii technology is 2-dimensional infrered sensors. Xbox kinect uses infrered scanning but because it maps your whole body rather than just the end of the controller and because it can process a lot of info, it can actually do a good job of mirroring 3d movement, but not quite precise.

IGN posts a fair review about the playstation move, claiming that the PS move is a balance of both the wii and the kinect having the best of both worlds, however I feel it's a bit critical in some parts. Personally I've never experienced any kind of noticable delay, or had any problems with lighting and at times I've had a light right behind it. Maybe sunlight responds differently because the room in which I play does not have any sunlight at all. I also find the game responds perfectly in the dark as well. The thing about the games having issues I can't comment on because I've seen none. The games I have played are Mag and sports champions, and I've also played every game in the demo pack. The game TV superstars is ridiculous, and is not my thing, but I suppose some people will like that sort of thing, and it is funny how you can personalize the character. It takes a picture, puts your face on the player and has it in game. Sports champions allow you to take a picture of yourself after the play and it will add in an object such as a ping pong paddle in real time and take a picture. The camera quality isn't great, but it serves it's purpose.

On interesting idea. If you have the playstation eye toy, and take the playstation move controller with the playstation 2 eyetoy games, you can use the light so that it can detect the motion. The light from the bulb makes your playstation 2 eye turn into a kinect essentially. Of course the playstation eye games maybe aren't the same and are more about pictures of objects being superimposed in front of yourself in a 3d environment, rather than you becoming a player which you see on screen.

Ultimately if you're going to call a playstation move a wii clone, you're going to have to call xbox 360 kinect a PS2 eye clone, which means Playstation wins here. If you don't call the PS move a wii clone, and respect the advancements that make it oh so much better, you can at least respect the advancements in technology that were brought just as the xbox kinect wouldn't be here if it weren't for Nintendo (power pad) and Playstation 1 DDR and playstation 2 eye toy and ultimately Nintendo Wii. Then you can say, the Playstation move is great, but I prefer kicking the air and punching the air and putting my hands up to "air drive" or "air tennis" or to play a game and say "look ma, no hands". Or "I don't care about gamplay I just want to have a system that responds to my voice and knows who I am so I can tell it what movies to watch and not have to pick up a remote and press a button". At least then you don't sound like an ignorant xbox fanboy who's just overhyped about his system too much to consider that the xbox kinect is more similar to the playstation eyetoy than the playstation move is to the wii. And when it comes to experiences, playstation move offers superior gaming and more realistic simulations of the actual experience.

What's the truth? No, The PS move is not a wii clone, and the xbox 360 kinect is not a PS2 eyetoy clone. By the way, playstation move offers 3d gaming so if you want the ultimate gaming experience and you're willing to buy a 3d TV, check it out.



Yes, now you see how excessive the claims are exagerated.
Bottomline: Kinect is for soccer and dance and "foot" based games, but also movie watchers that like verbal navigation. It's also for people that like things "outside the box" but if you really want to step outside the box, check out emotive's thought controller based games. Wii is a step and a half behind now until they come out with something else. PS move is for all else, and it has more titles set to release.

As for fighting games? I guess kickboxing isn't that great so far.


Haven't seen a review of the actual gameplay but everyone seems to like everything else about it. Motion tracking is not 1:1 in kinect though and there seems to be too big of a delay. However, soccer, track+field, dancing games... kinect is dominant in these and will remain that way.