Just about every console manufacturer in the game has gotten down on motion controlled gaming. Nintendo prett6y much introduce the idea to the mass market with the Wii and Microsoft and Sony followed iwth the Kinect and PlayStation Move.
While the PlayStation Move is similar to the Wii, the Kinect utilizes a camera that is able to recognize a gamer’s body in a 3D space allowing them to utilize their entire body as the controller. Thanks to this, there has been quit ea bit of attention of the Kinect and not as much on the PlayStation 3. It seems that all of the attention has managed to translate into sales numbers as reports suggest that the Kinect managed to sell. Well known analyst Michael Pachter says just 1/5th of PS3 sales included PlayStation Move while 2/3 of 360 sales contained Kinect.
Seeing how the PS3 sold 403,000 units and the Xbox 545,000 in February (where this analysis focuses on) it’s easy to see that the Kinect has outsold the PlayStation Move by a heft margin. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if trends continue or sway towards one of the Kinect’s competitors.
As of late, motion controllers have become the focal point with companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony coming forward to release the Kinect, Wii and PlayStation Move, respectively. All having had their fair share of success (the Wii leading by a hefty margin), these motion controllers provide an easy to pick up and play experience along with adding a big of realism.
While the Kinect is something completely different, the Wii and PlayStation Move are decently similar. Those who have been waiting to pick a PlayStation Move may be interested to hear that Sony will be releasing a Heroes Bundle for the PlayStation Move on March 22nd of this year. Included in the bundle is the following:
PlayStation Move Heroes Game
PlayStation Eye Camera
PlayStation Move Motion Controller
Check out some gameplay video for PlayStation Move Heroes after the break. READ ON »
The Microsoft Kinect is quite arguably the most interesting of the three motion controllers on the market due to its physical controllerless design. However, while this point has made consumers take interest in the Kinect it’s not practical for all games, namely shooters that require precise aiming. Luckily the Kinect hacking community is on hand to remedy this as one YouTube user by the name of Demize2010 has managed to combine Nintendo’s Wiimote with Kinect to control games like Call of Duty, Max Payne and more. The results are pretty stunning which you can see in the above video.
Perhaps Microsoft will one day come out with a peripheral that works in conjunction with the Kinect to give us precision control while maintaining the innovative motion control provided by Kinect.
The guy behind this hack has a few other videos on his YouTube channel showing off this hack’s functionality which you can access here.
One of the coolest features of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect is its ability to manipulate a user interface. If you’ve used the system you’re sure to know that you can scroll through menus and make selections all by waving your hands in the air. However, due to the fact that the Kinect is still somewhat new, not all Xbox 360 applications have been able to benefit from it.
Luckily, now that CES is upon us we’re able to learn of new features coming to the Kinect ecosystem in the coming months. According to a recent announcement at this year’s CES, Kinect support will be coming to both Netflix and Hulu Plus sometime this spring. This, quite evidently, means that you’ll be able to scroll through menus and make your selection all with your hands.
Nintendo showed us with the Wii that motion controlled video games can sell like hot cakes. Thanks to this, companies like Sony and Microsoft have gone on to release the PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect, respectively. While reception for these two pieces of hardware has been generally good thus far, Microsoft is hoping that things will ramp up even more for the Kinect come 2011.
While 2.5 million units have already been sold, Xbox executive Stephen McGill has gone on record as saying that 2011 wikll be “all about Kinect”. Why does he say this, you ask? Below is his statement:
“As for the future, we’ve got a brilliant line-up for 2011 but it’s ultimately all about Kinect. Kinect is going to blow people’s minds. They’re [already] buying it, but we’ve got a line-up of Kinect games that will blow people away.”
So far, I can’t say any of the Kinect games have really blown me away but it will be interesting to see how Microsoft and their software partners utilize the innovative technology to create some mind blowing games.
There is a lot of hype in the video gaming world surrounding motion control with the craze being started by the Nintendo Wii. Following the massive success of the Wii, Microsoft went on to release the Kinect and Sony the Playstation Move – but will either of these new technologies catch on?
Many wondered if the Kinect, in particular, would catch on due to the fact that it does not feature any controller whatsoever instead relying on the user’s entire body. Well, those of you who doubted the Microsoft Kinect can officially put their doubts to rest as irt was made known today that to date, over 2.5 million Kinect sensors have been sold.
This is great news for Microsoft as it will allow their software developers to get Kinect enabled games into the homes of millions. It’s also good for us because we can now look forward to a whole slew of top notch games developed specifically for Kinect.
Have you purchased a Kinect? If not, do you plan on doing so?
A new video has hit YouTube today showing off Microsoft’s highly anticipated Project Natal. The game that is being played throughout the demo is entitled Ricochet, which we’ve seen before. However, while we’ve seen both the technology and gaem put on display in the past, the video clearly shows that the hardware is evolving and is getting more precise than ever.
Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until later this year to try it out ourselves.
If you were hoping to hop on some Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 and utilize Project Natal, your hopes and dreams may have just been smashed. Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda let us in on the bad news and said that while Project Natal devs were able to implement the control into titles such as Space Invaders Extreme and Beautiful Katamari it required a large portion of code to be modified.
So, this means that while it technically is possible to have games such as CoD 4 and Halo 3 work with Project Natal it would not be something the game’s developers would be able to do with a simple downlodable patch. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope Bungies puts Project Natal to use in Halo: Reach.
At E3 both Sony and Microsoft unveiled their own offerings in the grand world of motion sensing controllers. Microsoft’s Project Natal goes a different route than the Wii, utilizing a camera to track players movements and translate them into control inputs while Sony uses a wand device similar to the Wiimote. It didn’t exactly catch on, but Sony in some ways was first to the hit the motion sensing gameplay market with their Eyetoy.
Since their newest motion control device bears a striking similarity to Nintendo’s, they’ve come out to insist that they’ve been working on a wand device sine the original EyeToy. They released a video on Youtube of a tech demo made with the original EyeToy where they showcase some of the features that are now integrated into their new wand.
The technology was just announced at E3 09 and already Microsoft is ready to put the technology to work on live TV on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Both Project Natal and the tech’s creative director Kudo Tsunoda made an appearance to show off the same two games that were featured during E3; a game where you have to smack balls at a wall brick breaker style and a modified version of Burnout Paradise.
Now, I don’t know about you guys but either Jimmy Fallon isn’t too good at video games or the technology is a bit glitchy. Both are completely plausible since the technology is still in at an extremely early stage.
