With both Project Natal and Sony's "arc" motion controller slated to launch this upcoming fall/holiday season, the two camps are positioning themselves to hit the market with as strong a product as possible. Nintendo owns the motion control space right now, but both Sony and Microsoft are dying to change that. In our recent conversation with Rob Dyer, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations, we asked the executive point blank about Sony's chances in the impending motion war.
Frankly, what we told Dyer is that from a pure marketing and PR perspective, Natal seems to be winning the battle. Microsoft has done much more to hype up Natal as some revolutionary platform, while emphasizing what great support they've garnered from the major publishers. Dyer, of course, sees this as simply a lot of posturing by Microsoft. He remains extremely confident in Sony's product.
"I'm actually really proud of the way we've handled the motion controller. From Sony's perspective, rather than go out and do a whole PR barrage to give everybody the 'happy, happy, joy, joy' news, we're going to show up and have a line-up of products to show people rather than having a lot of great statements to say, 'This is what's going to happen.' So whether it's at GDC or DPS (Destination PlayStation), and definitely at E3, you're going to see – and I've seen it from both first and third parties – some really awesome products to support this," he said. "And rather than us go there and pat ourselves on the back, and send out press releases talking about this, we're going to be Missouri; it's going to be 'show me.' And that's the deal."
He continued, "From a third-party perspective it's easier to develop for, you can use the same code base that you currently use for PS3 or 360 or even the Wii in order to get a motion controller game out. You can't do that with Natal. You have to have a completely separate code base and my feeling is that we're going to have a lot more games, a lot more innovation – particularly with the camera and the precision – versus what you'll have with Natal or the Wii. We can all sit around here and debate that... but the fact is I'm not having any trouble getting third-party support.”
We then asked Dyer if he's at all concerned about PS3 getting a flood of cheap, Wii-like cash-ins since Sony's motion controller is much more similar to Wii than Natal. He countered, "I can assure you that's not what you're going to see. The fact that we use a camera changes everything. I think the press has forgotten that Sony has been using a camera [for a long time]. This is now our second iteration of it. We know what the consumer wants with regards to using a camera and whether they want something in their hands or not. I think Natal will have some great games on that system that'll work well without implements, and we're going to have what we think are better games because we have a lot more learning from [the camera]. We've done this for a long time... it's not our first foray into this business.”
While Sony and Microsoft are obviously both trying to capture a piece of the Wii audience and perhaps convince those consumers to upgrade, Dyer said that Sony's motion controller will provide experiences for the hardcore and casual gamers. “We have games that will address both the casual consumer and the core. This is not something we take lightly at all. We're going to have games coming from third parties that are hardcore games – these are not fluff pieces – which will incorporate the motion controller. Given our tagline 'It Only Does Everything,' we feel the motion controller will only expand on that and give the consumer a great experience.”
But what if the hardcore gamer doesn't care? Do you really want some motion controls shoehorned into Uncharted? We asked Dyer if Sony has done focus groups to find out what the hardcore wants. He answered, “Yes... I was actually at a presentation yesterday at one of the publishers where we were presenting this stuff. Trust me, we've spent way too much money on way too many outside resources looking at this. It's not, 'Oh gee, Nintendo did this. What a great idea. We need a motion controller.' It's 'Does our consumer want it? Does it make sense for the games? Can publishers maximize it and sell more games?' Based upon our research, the answer is 'Yes, a definitive resounding Yes.'"
He added, "I think there are some games that are purpose built not to have a motion controller and there are some games that are purpose built that would be better with a motion controller. Having been on the publisher side and having made Wii games, the problem a lot of the time was because you had that Wii remote from the get go you felt like if you weren't using it, were you really making the right kind of game? I think that's been a problem for a lot of publishers. Can I make a game that's compelling using this motion controller? And if you can't then just make a great game without it... I think people had a problem doing that on the Wii. But you're right – there are probably certain franchises that should never ever use the motion controller. But then there are some where you might go, 'You know what, this would be pretty cool if I had a real gun' or if I could really swing a baseball bat, or swing a golf club. When you get MLB and play it with the motion controls, it'll be like an epiphany. Angels will start singing and you'll have a very different experience. I promise you that; it's so damn cool. We're not making any official announcements, but I've seen the technology on it. The tech is very different from what's out there today."
[Editor's note: We followed up to see if Dyer was confirming that the next MLB would have motion controls, but for now nothing's confirmed. He's simply seen the motion controller used in sports games like baseball and golf - which are, of course, natural fits.]
8 Comments
February 23, 2010
One advantage that Arc over Natal is that its an easier concept for users to wrap their heads around. You pick up the want device and wave it in front of the PlayStation Eye and you get a corresponding image on screen. It'll work from a “proof-of-concept” sense – whether that will overcome the 'pop' that Natal has as a brand new device will be hard though.
February 23, 2010
I agree with you on that but i been telling everyone this last year and now most blog are now commenting on it now that alot of Wii software old and new will port to the Ps3 motion controler .
February 23, 2010
Arc has a clear advantage over Project Natal for one main reason - practicality. With the PS3's motion controller you're actually holding the controller, just using it in a different way. It won't be hard to get accustomed to.
However with Project Natal it's just you in front of the sensor........basically "Miming" the actions that you want to appear on screen. It's almost like you're pretending to do something.....rather than actually controlling a game. This is going to be a very difficult adjustment for many gamers to make and it's this reason Microsoft have started the hype train so early.....they know their product is going to be very difficult for gamers to adapt to and so they're trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes by releasing a load of hyperbole nearly a full year before launch.
February 23, 2010
Ignoring the hype, I'm honestly not sure which one will have the advantage. I don't really feel that either one is for us (meaning hardcore) anyway. I'm very curious about both, and I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun with them, but my preference for traditional controls will probably remain. MS and Sony are both launching these devices hoping to capture the Wii audience, but how can we assume that Wii owners or people who were looking at buying a Wii will go ahead and purchase a 360 or PS3?
February 24, 2010
@ James Brightman, I would like to add that I also feel hardcore gamers just like you and me would be somewhat apprehensive as to what these two peripherals bring to the table in terms of offering something different to what we'r e used to, but I think the SCEA rep said it all, some games aren't meant to have motion control to playing them and some would actually be much better using motion control.
My five year old daughter has a wii and I just love playing the wii games on it because that works great, some other games just don't cut it and actually puts one off playing them. here's where I feel Sony's "arc" would prove to be the better of the two as supposed to MS' Natal.
I'd love to think that Sony would also provide us gamers with the option of playing future games - and existing ones also, with the conventional controllers that we're used to or trying out a new and hopefully better gaming experience using the motion controller. If they do get this right, then I very well believe that it would lead to the sale of more units by Sony and probably some from the Nintendo wii faithful crowd.
I also think with Sony having incorporated the PSeye camera into their peripheral, the Natal-like motion control can be made possible on the PS3....in actual facts, you could argue that the "arc" manages to perfectly blend two concepts into one - the wii's motion control and MS' Natal.
February 24, 2010
neither of these products come with the systems. so they will have to be packaged with some killer games or else they are bound to be nothing more than eye toy like sell throughs.
February 24, 2010
Anthony, I think that MS and/or Sony will end up bundling it with their systems. In fact, that may be a tactic instead of more drastic price cuts. If they don't bundle, they're in trouble, because you're right, peripherals typically don't sell a ton.
February 25, 2010
Agreed. They HAVE to start bundling it with games as well as systems in order to include the already MILLIONS of people who dont own the controllers. and will not upgrade to a new system just for a new controller on the same generation cycle.