Motion Controllers

It was way back at E3 2006 that I first saw Nintendo Wii in action with it's motion controls and I was immediately impressed. I don't remember exactly when it was I first tried it for myself but it was pretty soon after the UK release that a friend of mine bought one. It will still pretty impressive when playing live though not quite as good as I imagined. Over the next few years Nintendo released other related products such as the balance board and the Motion Plus attachment. With the Motion Plus release and the black version of the console I finally bought one for myself. With the added Motion Plus the control feels a lot more accurate. There's still some lag but that largely depends on the game. The other two console manufacturers (Sony & Microsoft) have been playing catch up ever since. They both previewed motion controls of their own at lasts years E3 then this year announced they were ready and going on sale.

Sony's attempt, the Playstation Move, looks awfully similar to the Wii controls. Although it differs in technical terms. Rather than IR and Wireless it uses a camera to track the light of the glowing orb thing. By the looks of the videos this makes it more accurate than the Wii but also apparently more susceptible to lighting conditions. Of course to know for sure I'd need to play it for myself but I don't know anyone who owns a PS3 and I'm not bothered about having one for myself either so that's unlikely to happen.


Microsoft took a different approach for the Xbox 360 with their new Kinect system, deciding to take the controllers completely out of the equation and instead use an advanced camera system to track body movements directly. In addition they've added a voice activation system allowing you total control of the system without touching anything, in theory. To me this sounds the most interesting but unfortunately in the videos it seems that it's still not quite accurate enough and there's a fair amount of lag in translating your movements. It sounds like it still needs a couple of generations of improvements.

Of course the biggest problem with motion control overall is space. In all the promotional videos people are playing these things in large living rooms with lots of space. I on the other hand live in a flat with not a lot of floor space. If a Wii game wants me to step off the balance board I can't unless I start moving tables. If I need to jump I'll hit my head on the ceiling. So generally motion control is not for me, I'll stick with PC gaming for now.