E3 2009 was all about motion control, and got our first glimpses of both Project Natal and what is now known as the PlayStation Move. Both used different types of technologies, so naturally they stirred up curiosity as to which tech would be better. Is a camera-only system for the 360 adequate? What if the Wii was camera-only? What if the Wii used its remote in conjunction with a camera, a la Move?
Dr. Richard Marks, an R&D manager at Sony, has commented on why Sony decided to go ahead with Move as is rather than pursue a more Natal-like system.
“We tried a lot of different 3D cameras. I love the 3D camera technology; personally, I like the technology part of it. We worked closely with our game teams at what it would enable, and it enabled making the things we already did with EyeToy more robust, but it didn’t really enable as many new experiences as what we were hoping it would enable, so it made the things we were already able to do a little bit more robust — which is good — but it adds a lot of cost and it didn’t enable some of the other experiences we wanted to achieve.”
Only time will tell how well each system turns out to be, and the software will be an extremely significant variable in both cases. We’ll all get a chance to try the technologies out at this E3, so you’ll simply just have to wait a little longer.
