The Real Wii HD - PS3 Move

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=389846

The screenshots, they scar the brain...

Does Sony think that making HD PS3 ripoffs of Wii games is going to work, or something? I cannot imagine any of these actually doing well...

Gah, the screenshots, they scar... I mean, it was obvious that the PS3 Move was designed as a Wiimote knockoff so seeing all these Wii knockoff games isn't exactly surprising, but still, they're knockoffs of already-not-that-great games... that is not a good sign. And indeed, the results in those shots do not look good to say the least. :)

At least when Nintendo did it it was innovative! Sony here has no excuse except for dreams of selling systems to that audience... and on that note, I think that it's a bit late for people to care... people think of the Wii for this stuff. I just don't see this catching on with the market the Wii has successfully attracted with Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, etc. So yeah, bad and mediocre games ahead. :)

The Shoot™ (Working Title)


Move Party (Working Title)


Motion Fighter (Working Title)


Sports Champions


TV SuperStars


Brunswick® Pro Bowling (Not sure if a Move title)

[lazyfatbum]

HAAHHAHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAAHAHAHAAAAHAAHAHHAA'

OMFG

[A Black Falcon]

And remember, these are FIRST PARTY PUBLISHED games.

[Great Rumbler]

And thus, the last vestiges of the videogame industry as it was once known were swept away amidst a tsunami of casual-oriented motion games. The weeping and lamentations of the faithful were loud, but ultimately drowned out by the crashing of that awful torrent. Their prayers to the Gaming Gods fell on deaf ears and they were swept from the land out to sea, where the waves consumed them.

[A Black Falcon]

And thus, the last vestiges of the videogame industry as it was once known were swept away amidst a tsunami of casual-oriented motion games. The weeping and lamentations of the faithful were loud, but ultimately drowned out by the crashing of that awful torrent. Their prayers to the Gaming Gods fell on deaf ears and they were swept from the land out to sea, where the waves consumed them.

You're good... and right, too, for now at least.

Remember though, this has happened many times before. Every time it ends the same way, eventually -- the tidal wave of clones eventually come crashing down in failure as people lose interest in so many nearly identical games. A few diehard fans of the genre continue on, but most developers move on to the next fad genre.

We're still pretty early in this one though, so there's probably a ways to go... but the music games "crash" last year does give me hope that perhaps in a few years it'll die down and publishers will actually start funding good games again. :)

[Great Rumbler]

The PS3 and Xbox360 have a steep hill to climb since both of their motion controllers are add-ons AND the Wii had already cemented itself as the go-to console for casual gamers.

[A Black Falcon]

Quite true. I'm not exactly predicting that Sony and Microsoft will suddenly make their systems as popular as the Wii is with this...

I mean, it'll move some units I'm sure, and neither addon will probably be a total failure, but still. If they think that they're going to beat the Wii with the Sony Wand and Natal, I really don't think that those hopes will be realized. Nintendo already owns that market... and I don't think it's one that cares about graphics enough for better graphics to convince them, while on the other hand the higher prices (for Sony especially) are a big factor.

Hands-on preview: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/03/hands-o...ts-resort/

It works, at least. Joy.

[alien space marine]

move photos

[lazyfatbum]

HEHE

[Weltall]

lulz

[A Black Falcon]

Sony, Sony...

:shake:

[A Black Falcon]

http://wii.ign.com/articles/107/1077008p1.html

IGN GDC Natal and PS3 Move impressions... not too positive for Natal, and mixed on Move. But developers are not always right, so they won't say anything for sure.

PS3 Move...

So I'm relaxing on a couch in a high-rise suite as a developer offers me a glimpse of its new game, still unannounced but very exciting. We get to talking about Sony's motion controller, recently unveiled. I played with it at publisher's event and as something of a Wii veteran with a firm understanding of how pointer and gestural controls work and how games should feel when they are properly finessed. I'm not impressed, I say. PS3 Move features almost no latency -- just one frame -- but that paper truth didn't seem to translate to reality as I played with the controller at Sony's event. Most of the stuff played like first-generation Wii efforts from third-parties.

Obviously, I'm not making games and I'm sure some software creators will note that with the roll of the eyes and claim that it's all too easy for me to bitch and moan from the backseat, or the sidelines, as it were. But playing the armchair role for a minute, it seems an unavoidable conclusion to me that Sony should have at least examined the very best genre-leaders on Nintendo's platform and then duplicated if not surpassed them with its own Move-controlled experiences. For instance, Medal of Honor, The Conduit and Red Steel 2 offer fantastic controls for first-person shooters. Anything less than these will be considered substandard by the informed masses -- at least those with knowledge of Wii's library. Unfortunately, Move doesn't yet compete. The company's shooter feels laggy and unresponsive as I attempt to gun down robotic targets. The boxing game is not one-to-one, but gestural-based, and slow. Nearly everything feels redone, but somehow half-baked.

The exceptions are the augmented reality games, which project gameplay graphics onto real-time views of players using Sony's camera. These are all flimsy affairs -- mini-games of the sort that sold Wii consoles three years ago, but as I watch people having fun while they shave the heads of goofy virtual monsters, I can't help but think how much my kids are going to love this stuff. It's fluffy, sure, but families will eat it up and there's just enough freshness that critics like me can't say that Sony copied Nintendo, at least not blatantly. Just as importantly, it's responsive and it feels good.

Move's hardware is more than competent and there's certainly a lot of potential, but most of it remained untapped at the event. This opinion is seconded by the developer, which is working closely with the device. They tell me that they believe it will ultimately outperform the Wii remote in responsiveness and say that their own tests are already proving that true. I ask if there is the kind of lag I experienced at Sony's demo and they say no, that it's very fast and reliable when programmed correctly. They add that it still has some calibration issues like the Wii remote, but that it's still an improvement.

Natal...

Natal, though -- the motion offering from Microsoft -- not so much. The same studio rep calls Natal a big, buggy mess. "It's sh*t," he adds, saying that it just doesn't work as promised. That it's slow and that the camera is imprecise, which he notes, is causing some major development woes.

He refers to a development conference Microsoft held not so long ago in which Peter Molyneux of Fable fame (presently, creative director at Microsoft Game Studios) took the stage and attempted to demo the publisher's much-publicized Milo Natal project. Molyneux apparently called someone from the audience to the stage and asked them to interact with the virtual boy, but it didn't go to plan. Natal's camera failed to see the person accurately because he was wearing a black trench coat. After some fiddling, he was asked to remove his trench coat and -- whoops -- wore a black shirt underneath. When it still didn't work, he was invited to take his seat again.

Next, Molyneux said that Milo could interact with illustrations drawn to paper and scanned by the camera. He asked the audience for suggestions. "You could see him cocking his head and listening for the right key words, and then finally he heard something the game would recognize," my development source explains. It was a cat. So he invited someone from the audience to ascend the steps to the stage and illustrate the feline on paper. When Natal attempted to scan the horribly scribbled drawing, it instead picked up the Abercrombie & Fitch logo on the person's sweater.

I laugh at this but try to play devil's advocate. Okay, I say, so it's obvious you're not a fan, but somebody must be getting this thing to work well or it wouldn't be on the slate to ship this year. I ask if he knows of any other studios struggling with Natal.

"How about Rare and Lionhead? They're just going to try to make launch and then they're going to patch everything later," he says, laughing.

I'm very interested in the platform, but I haven't entrenched myself in Natal development. Later, when I bump into a colleague, I ask them if they have heard any behind-the-scenes rumblings about development trouble with Microsoft's casual entry device. He turns to me and says that yes, he has -- that studios are telling him they're struggling to get it working.

Conclusions:

Takeaways so far: Sony has made a dildo-controller that feels like a gimped Wii remote. Natal sucks. And Wii 2 is in no rush. At least, that's how it goes in pure black and white and if you believe everything you hear at this year's Game Developers Conference. Of course, if you do, then maybe you'll also believe that GameCube's fill rate is much better than Xbox's and therefore Nintendo's hardware is superior. Right?

Oh Wii 2:

Speaking of Nintendo, everyone seems to be waiting for word on the company's next system. It's the go-to question in interviews. "Yes, I understand Wii sold a bazillion units in December alone, but hey -- when's Wii HD coming?" Yeah -- I'm guilty of that one, too. And it's no different when I talk to developers and publishers, nearly all of whom receive the obligatory query about new hardware -- what and when? I always resign myself to the no comment or the no idea, but at GDC I struck a bit of a niblet when a developer said Nintendo told him it would be ready to roll with Wii 2 in 2012. Anybody with a brain would probably guess as much, but it is even so always refreshing to hear so from a semi-official source.

[Geno]

Wow, those games look like shit even if they're hi-def. They look like they'd get boring fast, anyway. It's kind of funny how most of the games I enjoy on the Wii require me to turn my Wiimote sideways and use it like a regular gaming controller. Exceptions include Wii Sports, Twilight Princess, and Mario Kart.

[lazyfatbum]

Oh boy... when I read that MS took a way a chip from Natal and that the chip function's would be handled via software I knew that was a bad sign. I mean, a side from the game's looking goofy, if they play right its all good, but it would seem they dont even do that.

I doubt Nintendo will show anything now, we'll have to wait till E3 for next DS and Wii news. Maybe even 2011.

If Move and Natal would have delivered on their promises, Nintendo would show Wii2 and DS2 but now... its back to hoping some serious games on the Wii will keep me interested.

[lazyfatbum]

To note, PS3's Move should, in theory, be more responsive than Wii's 'Mote and chuck. It should be pin-point, pixel to pixel aiming most notably because of the giant fucking glowing ball.

In the above the previewer mentions that the AR games work great and this makes sense to me, as SCEA and Sony Japan have been making Eyetoy games for quite some time...

Honestly, this is bad news for everyone. This means developers that were ignoring the Wii wont find success on Natal or Move either and motion controlled games wont expand as they should unless it's 'From Nintendo'. Oddly enough this may actually give third parties a boost of confidence with Wii - if Natal and Move are so difficult to program for, going to Wii might be the best option.

I'm shaking my head at the whole thing. Nintendo was right, HD doesn't make anything better but god dammit I want Nintendo's artists to showcase on a platform equal to the graphical capabilities of a PS3 or 360. This could go 'motion controls suck' and devs stick to classic controllers or 'lets develop on Wii because its cheaper and more effective.' I'm hoping for the latter but I just read that Monster Hunter Tri wont have motion controls, Classic/Gamecube controller support only.

[Unreadphilosophy]

This sums up my thoughts on MOVE:

[Geno]

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[Unreadphilosophy]

Sony here has no excuse except for dreams of selling systems to that audience

That's not completely true, Falcon. Sony has stated that many of the games for MOVE will be geared toward a mature audience. They've already confirmed Resident Evil 5 and SOCOM 4 for the new system.

[A Black Falcon]

This thing is supposed to compete with the Wii though, so I think we know where the central focus is going to be...