The motion commotion

BY GERARD CAMPBELL

Computer gaming giants Microsoft and Sony have opened a new front in their ongoing war with new "motion-sensitive" gaming technology.

Both companies have taken very different routes to challenge each other - and Nintendo's Wii motion- sensitive technology - in hopes of attracting families and other non- traditional video gamers.

Sony's Move follows a fairly traditional route, with handheld controllers with buttons and spongy round balls on the top. A PlayStation Eye camera tracks the controllers as they are moved around, and calculates depth and distance across all axis.

Microsoft's Kinect takes a more dramatic approach, avoiding handheld controllers in favour of a camera with a depth sensor that follows a player's body movements.

Touting the tagline, "You are the controller", Kinect also allows players to use their voices to control applications on their Xbox 360. Voiceable commands - Kiwi accents understood - include start, pause and fast forward films, and launching applications. It will also let users video chat with other Xbox Live or Windows Live Messenger users, which could take the fight to Skype, the internet telephony service.

Microsoft officials admit that when they launched the Xbox 360 console, they neglected family gamers, something they hope to rectify with Kinect. Fifteen games - five of them from Microsoft - will be released for Kinect this year and many are family oriented.

These include Kinectimals (an animal-raising simulation game), Kinect Sports (cartoony versions of football, volleyball, bowling and so forth), Kinect Adventures (navigate roaring rapids, obstacle courses and an underwater laboratory). There's also a fitness game - Your Shape: Fitness Evolve - that will give Wii Fit a run for its money.

The best Kinect game, in my opinion, is the energy-burning Dance Central, an "immersive dance video game".

David McLean, Xbox's head of Australasia, said the biggest obstacle stopping people from becoming gamers is the controller. "Removing that controller means that my mother-in-law will have a go at video games. It means my five-year-old daughter will have a go at Kinectimals," he says. "We believe we have a box that speaks to every member of the family."

McLean was quick to dispel suggestions that games for the Kinect were Wii Sport knock-offs.

"Does it look Wii-like on the screen? Some of it, yes. Does it play Wii-like? Not by a long shot.

"It's not about moving a gizmo or a controller, or pressing a button and releasing it at exactly the right moment. It's whatever your body does and however you behave. I believe the experience is fundamentally different. It's a breakthrough experience and there is nothing to learn," says McLean.

It's hard to compare the Kinect and Wii because, he says, " they are completely different".

"When Wii launched with its controller, I thought that was incredibly innovative for our industry," says McLean.

"After that, we as competitors had a choice: we could either fit into the current paradigm, and I think that's what you're seeing Sony do, or we could leapfrog it and take everything to a whole new level. And I think that's what Microsoft are doing.

"We know what the direction has been with motion controllers but there is nothing new in what Sony are offering. It's Wii plus one. None of us know where Kinect is going to take us, but it clearly is innovative and breakthrough."

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Sony disputes that its Move is "Wii plus one" and is quick to assert superiority over Microsoft.

Dave Hine, head of Sony PlayStation in New Zealand, says his company was the first to develop camera-driven, no-controller, motion-driven play with its EyeToy, launched in 2003 on the PlayStation 2. It used a person's body movement rather than a controller.

"It's fair to say we've had a lot of experience with motion-controlled gaming. It is from that experience that we have learned that there is only so far you can go developing controller-less games," Hine says.

Some Move games use buttons on the controllers and some don't. "It's all about the games, really, and the Move adds more depth to gaming and more accuracy."

Games such as fighting game The Fight: Lights Out and third-person action game Socom 4 appeal to action and shooter fans, a category that Kinect doesn't, he says.

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Microsoft is equally quick to reply. McLean says his definition of success with Kinect is "whether a granddad in Christchurch decides to step in and have a go with an Xbox game - and he's never touched a console before in his life".

If there is one potential roadblock for Kinect, it will be the reaction to the device from hardcore Xbox 360 fans, the core group that has supported the console since its launch and thrive on franchises such as Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty. Sony's Move has more games aimed at the hardcore gamer, and many Xbox 360 gamers are sceptical of Kinect. McLean isn't so sure.

"I think gamers will jump into Kinect because there are some games that they just want to have that experience with.

While no-one knows where this new technology will take us, it's likely that Kinect and Move will dent Nintendo's market share, as its Wii lacks the graphical grunt and high- definition fidelity of Microsoft and Sony's offerings.

What is also clear, though, is that more gamers this year will be swaying, Kinecting and Moving with their games in ways they never thought possible.

qSony's Move comes to New Zealand on September 16. A main Move controller will cost $79.95 and a secondary controller $59.95.

qMicrosoft says Kinect will be available in New Zealand before Christmas. No prices have been released.

- © Fairfax NZ News