Good evening System Wars today I felt like injecting a bit of awesome into the forums today in the form of a good debate thread.
Now we all know that the generation of motion controls is now here...*Even if it's not even a new generation of consoles" The Wii has flashed a giant red panic light in the competitors offices, in response both have pushed to create *or at least push ahead* there own movement oriented peripherals and experiences. The three giants have 3 totally different ways about going about the world of motion controls, lets have a look at the 3 ideologies shall we?
Nintendo: Wii did it first!"Fully integrated 100%"
Nintendo is the first to bring motion controls to the market, and the sole reason we see all 3 big guns jumping into the motion controller race. Fact is without Nintendo flaring interest it is highly unlikely that we would see motion controls until at least the next generation, Kinect and Move would be a mere afterthought of MS and Sony's R&D departments. The question for Ninetndo is why go motion controls in the first place?
Nintendo was generally reeling from it's failure the past two generations, profits were down and many whispers were abound that Nintendo might be going the way of Sega as it had no other way to recoup it's losses than risk another Console release that arguably all but the most loyal would touch with a 10 foot poll! Then Nintendo brought the Nintendo DS to the field, this gaming monster still dominates all markets today and shrugs off any competitors with it's massive foothold and firm grasp of it's loyal portable fanbase. The DS alone was what funded the Wii and was also a key player behind the reasoning of the Wii's general marketing and design. The Nintendo DS was as unconventional as could be...Touchscreen gaming? dual screens? What is this madness! But it is what brought Nintendo back from the brink of destruction and these far out ideals would carry on to it's bigger brother the Wii.
Conceptually the Wii is a weak system compared to the others, this is due to Nintendo focus ALL of it's assets on developing the Wii motion controller. When the Wii hit the market everyone was surprised at not just how well it sold, but who was buying it. Nintendo had grabbed the crowd that Sony had fought hard to get even a small piece of last generation with the PS2...the had The Casuals! Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, they may have not known how it worked but like the Furby and Elmo of years past...they had to have it.
Now that the history is out of the way, lets get to the meat and bones of it.
Nintendo for the most part has supported the motion control 100% *give or take a few games that don't support it at all* Every game you play on the wii requires the use of the motion controller, especially titles developed by Nintendo have motion controls at the core of mostly every single game created. This has garnered them a slightly bad rap with the Hardcore gamers who allowed Nintendo to survive this long to even get the Wii to be born, Nintendo has stated that they are not just focusing on the casual gamers but the hardcore as well. Hardcore titles are still few and far between for Nintendo, and developers outside of Nintendo developing anything for the hardcore gamers is even more sparse, but who can blame them many games that have tried to appeal to the gamer crowd have fallen flat on there face on the Wii. Not a single game from the top 15 best selling Wii games is not developed by Nintendo, and again even farther down there are few games that are not Nintendo branded games. Even the Wii motion+ as been genrally shunned by the developing community and seemingly Nintendo itself, the Motion+ seems like a afterthought to adress the hardcore gamers complaints but fell on deaf ears in the end.
Yet the Wii sells millions of units, and until recent years had trouble keeping the systems on the shelves of retailers worldwide, with success like this coming from a position of looming doom who can argue Nintendo has got it right? The question is will this strategy carry over to the next generation of systems or will the casual gamers who are not akin to being loyal to anything move onto the competitions shiner and higher tech offerings?
Microsoft: Hardcore...who?"Fully integrated...in the future"
Microsoft has launched the largest ad campaign for a peripheral in gaming history, with next to no regard to caring how the hardcore gamers that brought it from a dud last generation into one of the two consoles competing for hardcore gamer attention.
Kinect previously known as porject Natal has until recently been marred by bad press for being a bit overzealous yet under delivering to the press. Milo? Fake video, and stage demos where African gentlemen were asked to wear white gloves for no apparent reason? Yeah they didn't have it working well enough to read every ones hands yet, but tried to show it off anyways. Every join in the body? well...you couldn't sit down nor does it read finger gestures.
News like this painted Microsoft as a fool while developing the Kinect, and now they are pulling out all the stops to slam that bad press into a small corner while buying out huge add campaigns on banner adds, TV, Concerts, Oprah, Just Beiber, and a slew of general marketing to make it like the bad press never existed, but how is Kinect as a device?
Kinect while in infancy has generally delivered on it's technical promises, as far as testimonials claim the lag is tolerable and it reads your movements as accurately as advertised. The big flaw is that without precise movement reading such as hand gestures or more exact controls the Kinect is doomed to be for casual audiences only. Hardcore gamers don't want the inaccuracy of the human machine to be oriented into there gameplay experience in general unless it's impact is minimal at best. Can a Human aim with pinpoint accuracy as they can in CoD, Killzone, or Halo? No, even the simulated wobbliness of the hands is a tenth of what a real person would be like trying to aim an invisible gun, or even a analog of a real gun. Humans are imperfect, where as hardcore games need very tight, perfected controls. Programing for such massive variants in movements makes it a time consuming job to make sure when someone uppercuts, he is not launching a fireball instead, fighting games will be capsulized in this aspect taking out many of the challenges gamers have come to appreciate in there games.
Is it a challenge when everyone can do it? Gamers spend days/weeks/months sometimes perfecting the art of launching that spiral uppercut into a cancle knee bomb, the complete lack of controller input makes these hard to do actions impossible to program yet keep the entry level slightly above grade schooler. Kinects lack of input and variable motion inputs paints it to have little to do with the audience that mainly purchased the machine. Will Microsoft get the casuals that the Wii has? or will Microsoft somehow appeal to it's current fanbase in some way? We wont know for sure yet, but so far Microsoft doesn't seem too intent on funding many Hardcore Kinect games.
Sony: It's here if you want it."Optionally supported"
Sony has taken the same road they have with peripherals in the past, and it was a successful one with the Eyetoy, make it available, let people know about it and let nature takes it's course.
Sony is one of few companies to ever release peripherals this late in the game and see some form of success in the market, While America and Japan may not have been big fans of the Eyetoy, Europe went insane over it. Games like Singstar are Sony's bread and butter product to this day in the European countries, on release day all of Europe can be heard rocking out and singing bad Karaoke songs. Sony grabbed up a large number of casuals due to this approach in the PS2 era largely because they were uncontested, no one had a singstar game, and even this generation attempts to emulate it by Microsoft have been shoddy as best.
The Eyetoy was a massive winner, despite the fact it may be unknown in these parts it still rakes in cash for Sony. How will the PS Move fair now that they are not the first boys in the yard with the similar toy? Sony seems to be taking the exact same approach to the PS Move that they did with the Eye, it's there if you want it and sure we are going to support it...but not everything is going to need Move to function. The lack of massive advertising, and a smaller but wittier campaign clearly paint Sony as cautiously optimistic about the Moves chances to succeed.
Sony also seems keen on appealing to it's current player base when advertising the Move, it is implied that it can do more than Kinect could ever do for us...does it? What does Move bring that Nintendo failed to deliver years ago? Move has far more accuracy out of the box than the Wiimote does due to the motion+ being added on as an afterthought, HD graphics while not part of the controler add to the experience that the Wii could never offer. What does Move give us that Kinect can't? Simply put it gives us more control, while you may not need a controler for Kinect, the lack of one is a massive hinderance to the experience and using a controler as a stand in doesn't seem natural while the Move is designed to be controler you move with your body, instead of the controler being your body.
Will Sony ultimatly suceed with us gamers in pushing the Move? with there softhanded aproach with the peripheral they are dangerously on the edge of not giving the peripheral the support it needs to get it off the ground and will end up as wasted potential. While still not a precise as a standard controler, the buttons and more options give us gamers more reason to use it over Kinect and allow developers to integrate challenging scenarios that may use skill instead of blind gesturing. The Move echos many points of the Wii but it's marketing aim and improoved tech could push it to a new level, doubtfully though will it even garner half the attention the Wiimote ever would despite being superior.
Closing thoughts
So System wars where do you think the Motion Generation will take us? are we destined to have motion controler the new norm, such as dual analog has been the standard it is today? Or will gamers resist too hard and make companies revert to more familliar controlers next generation. On the flip side of the coin what if our resistance is futile, will casual gamers be keen on the two new controlers proping up the motion generation and hardcore gaming dissapear even farther into the backround of gaming culture than it has this generation allready?
Let me know your thoughts on the situation...and yes PC you can talk too, you just don't have any swanky popular motion devices I could guestimate on, other than Mind control being in THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!!!!!
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