Let the battle of the motion sensors commence!

I picked up a copy of 360 Gamer from Smith’s yesterday and in it, Jon Foster gives a brilliant overview of the race to design the ultimate motion sensor system. What’s clear is that we are set for a dust up of epic proportions this autumn. Microsoft and Sony are hot on the heals of Nintendo with motion sensor systems that they hope will capture part of the lucrative casual gaming market. But is the future or a fad? Do core gamers really want to leap around their living rooms shooting insurgents and riding quad bikes? The answer is no, obviously, I think, been wrong before, possibly, what do I know, what do you think? Anyway, I’ll give you an overview of the article.

Wii launched their revolutionary console system onto an unsuspecting market in late 2006 and awoke the casual gaming market from it’s slumber. All eyes were on Microsoft and whether it could steal some of Sony’s sweets, when along comes the £179 Wii with it’s Wiimote controller supported by TV ads showing people swiping at tennis balls in the comfort of their living rooms. The result? Tens of millions of sales for Nintendo whilst Sony and Microsoft left scratching their heads.

Sales of the Wii are only now beginning to slow. Up until now Nintendo haven’t needed to look at the price of the Wii, but that’s about to change. Natall and Move are on the way and they mean business. Lets take a look at Natal first and that infamous Jonathon Ross tweet.

Was he paid by Microsoft or is Wossy genuinely interested in Natal and XBOX consoles? It’s hard to call really, either way, he’s right. When  XBOX do nail Natal, (or whatever they decide to call it when it’s launched) it has limitless possibilities. What separates Natal from Nintendo or Sony’s system is the absence of a controller. Microsoft refer to Natal as a ‘motion capture system’, not a ‘motion controller’.

The system hardware consists of a 23cm wide horizontal bar that sits in front of the TV and detects your movements. It can also recognise facial movements and it has voice recognition capability. In addition, Natal is multiplayer friendly and can support up to four players at a time. So what’s the catch? A three figure price tag! Natal is almost certain to cost over £100 at launch. There are also reports of system lag and according to 360 Gamer the response times although noticeable are not enough to do damage to the on screen game.

Move over Wii, it’s Sony a matter of time before some one improves on your product! Sony’s challenge to the Wiimote is called ‘Move’. It’s being described as a more advanced version of the Wiimote. The sytem has three components, The motion controller, a sub controller and the Playstation Eye camera. The latter is physically connected to the console and picks up your movements, while a three-axis gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetic field sensor in the ‘wand’ thingy mean that movements can be tracked with real accuracy.

It has one obvious drawback. Multiple players will need multiple controllers. So although the Move system will undoubtedly be cheaper than Natal, family fun may come at a price for PS3 gamers.

What are Nintendo planning to do about this? Well they launched the Wiimote Motion Plus plug-in attachment last year with it’s advanced sensory capablities. The result was a controller that could deliver information about it’s rotation, thanks to the application of a three-axis gyroscope. Nintendo are focusing their efforts on the Wii 2 which is expected to launch next year. Good timing when you consider that Microsoft and Sony have shelved plans for their next generation consoles as they sprint for the motion controller finish line.