GDC 2010: Playstation Move

 

Sony Computer Entertainment America held its annual press conference at the Game Developers Conference last night in San Francisco, California. Many were unsure of how the event would go and what would finally be revealed. However, once the show got started, Playstation Move was the first topic at hand and continued throughout the show. Sony got right to work and revealed to us that the name of this motion controller was indeed the Playstation Move. There are many details swirling around the controller, so let’s try to cover them all.

What should be immediately noted is the fact that it will work solely with the Playstation Eye that was originally released back in the lifetime of the Playstation 2 but was never fully realized. It’s nice to see Sony hasn’t given up on the potential of the Eye. Sony also mentioned that the Move will work with a “sub-controller” as well; more details to come with that announcement in the near future. A Sony representative describes the Playstation Eye camera as a device that "detects the precise movement, angle, and absolute position in 3D space of PlayStation Move motion controller," according to Sony, while the Move peripheral features a "three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer and terrestrial magnetic field sensor, as well as a colour-changing sphere" which the Eye tracks.

Sony went even further as to describe that Wii owners will in time migrate from the Wii to the Playstation 3; "We like to think this is the next-generation of motion gaming," said SCEA's Peter Dille during the official unveiling at GDC in San Francisco. "Nintendo has done a great job introducing motion gaming to the masses. We like to think the migration from Wii to PS3 is a pretty natural path." Let’s take a look at some of the third-parties that will be developing games for this Move controller.

 

 

That’s quite a big list we have here. It’s pretty obvious that many publishers are willing to give the Move a shot, and it should be interesting to see how things work out once we reach the Fall Fiscal Quarter of this year. Sony themselves also stated they will be releasing about 20 or so games under their publishing rights as well. So you can expect a strong library of titles to start hitting the store shelves once the Move is released to the masses. According to a report there are about 36 third-party publishers on board for the Playstation Move. Here are some games Sony plans to release in time that was demoed at the conference.

- Motion Fighter
- Move Party
- Sports Champions
- TV Superstars
- The Shoot
- Slider

Also demoed at the show were the newly announced SOCOM 4, EyePet and LittleBigPlanet will also be taking advantage of the Playstation Move’s capabilities. We can expect quite a lot of interesting details to reveal themselves in time. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a list of specs for the little device in time as well depending on who gets a handle on it first. It’s an exciting time to be a Playstation 3 owner to look forward to the future. Let’s take a look at the pricing structure, shall we?

 

Sony promises the Playstation Move to cost under $100 which is what we first reported. The Move will be in three bundle packages; a standalone Move controller if you already own a Playstation Eye; a Move bundle containing a Playstation Eye and a Playstation Eye controller option which will cost you $99. Finally there will also be an option for new Playstation consumers with a Playstation Eye, Move Controller and a Playstation 3 console all bundled into one. The Playstation Move will be released sometime this Fall. I’m sure we’ll have to wait until the summer to find when exactly we’ll be physically seeing the Move in the store shelves.

While Nintendo certainly has done a wonderful thing regarding its Wii Motion Plus accessory, it seems that many aren’t completely satisfied. It’s not a complete 360 degree turn around. The Playstation Move will be able to recognize your movements from anywhere on the screen as long as your in the vision of the Playstation Eye. This allows for complete controller over your characters in gameplay and whatever party you happen to be playing at the time. So, the Playstation Move will be your next stop for Motion Controlled gaming, look here to GamePlasma for more updates on the Move as the year goes on.