Why motion control isn't the Holy Grail

Twelve months is a long time to speculate on a known technology about to enter the market.

That's how long we've had to guess the lengths Sony and Microsoft will go to in order to remain relevant to as wide a group of gamers as possible.

Throughout that time, many held off criticism in the hope that in some way, the addition of motion sensing hardware (whether that be Move or Kinect) would, at worst, be a venture between game developers and console manufacturers to co-operatively (and imaginatively) insert it into AAA titles. Perhaps as some kind of sure-fire way to make quick time events enjoyable for the first time since the early 1990's.

At best, the most optimistic out there enthused the possibility of a Minority Report-themed future, whereby all hardcore gaming would be dictated by the twitchy. Where anyone sufficiently adept in international sign language could be king.

 

The Move appears more accurate, but both developers are stuck on the same ideas for games.

It's pretty clear neither are remotely close to what has been presented at last week's E3 expo as the "bold leap forward" we've all been waiting for.

At a relatively rare moment in gaming where game sales are actually decreasing, console hardware is well past middle age, and gamers are nervously eyeing up sequels that seem to stretch over the horizon for all gaming platforms, the solutions presented by the two largest console manufacturers are as different as the two consoles they produce. That is to say, virtually identical.

In order to stem the sales slump, reinvigorate the gaming industry and provide a revenue stream for the foreseeable future, both Microsoft and Sony have decided to do exactly what Nintendo did four years ago with the Wii. The difference being, when Nintendo did it, it was revolutionary, and there wasn't another company out there who had already shipped seventy million units featuring the same concept to every corner of the earth.

It would be understandable, even commendable to make a bold move into Nintendo's turf if the Wii was either continuing to sell strongly, or starting to face increased demands from its user base for more complex features, or more challenging titles. But this simply isn't the case. The Wii sales behemoth is wilting because the concept is growing thin. This isn't out of the ordinary, the Wii has always been a fashionable entertainment device, and much like the Hula-Hoop, Viewmaster, and Tamagotchi before it, eventually it'll fade from collective worldwide interest, perhaps to return at a later date in a revised form.

 

Now you can perform the same exercises you could do with the Wii, but chose not to.

New technology is adopted into the mainstream when it's innovative and beneficial. Second-generation technology establishes a hold on the market when it's substantially cheaper and better than preceding technology. Kinect and Move have huge obstacles to overcome in order to remain relevant to a target market that have already had exposure to an extremely similar product for nearly half a decade. Given that the target market is firmly casual in nature, and therefore unlikely to care particularly much about HD, online integration or any number of other features tailored towards core gamers, it's hard to see why anyone not enamoured enough to purchase a Wii would now look forward to investing in either Kinect or Move.

Perhaps again, we could forgive Microsoft and Sony provided the software coupled to the hardware was innovative. Something with a snappy name, designed to show the huge difference between the Wii's flagship title and their bold new foray into the great unknown.

So what inspiring titles for games did the combined intellect of two massive marketing companies come up with? Kinect Sports & Sports Champions.

What next, Master Chief Kart? Buzz Fit?

 

Ah, so that's why it sounded familiar.

Even more worrying is that a lot of the more interesting uses for Kinect (and to a lesser extent, Move) have nothing to do with gaming whatsoever. Being able to navigate an on-screen display without using a remote has immediate, and exciting benefits, although it's hard to imagine anyone purchasing a Kinect system solely for this purpose. The inclusion of voice recognition hardly came as a shock, and will no doubt prove to be about as popular as the same systems employed by call centres the world over to discourage customers from ever calling in the first place.

Even if latency problems can be overcome (Kinect is somewhere around 150msec presently based on anecdotal evidence), it's unlikely that this technology will fuel fast-paced FPS titles in a competitive environment any time this generation. Any competition online would need to be segregated out into groups of those using motion control, and those using a conventional controller, because it's impossible to make both control mechanisms entirely even in response time, ease of use, and accuracy.

It's becoming clear that Kinect and Move have been employed to plug a hole that doesn't exist in order to sell technology that is largely irrelevant to the core market who have invested in Xbox and PS3 for as long as they've been around. Both Sony and Microsoft have decided to refocus their energy on the casual market, to the detriment of hardcore gamers. If you fall into the latter category, then don't feel bad about being totally underwhelmed by E3's hardware offerings this year.

Two interesting factors have come out of this however. One, if you happen to have Nintendo's foresight to invent a clever, cheap, and unique method of interacting with a gaming device, it's going to take two multi-billion dollar electronics companies with more employees than a Chinese mining conglomerate at least four years to manufacture something capable of doing exactly the same job.

Secondly, the shift away from the enthusiast gaming arena towards mainstream/casual markets for both console manufacturers involves heavy risk, and may well spell financial disaster for any company counting on the success of the Wii as evidence as to what profits can be expected.