Videogame analyst and Satan's jester Michael Pachter has been imparting his dirty wisdom quite a bit today, sharing with the world his opinion of the motion controllers being launched by Microsoft and Sony. According to the venerable sage, he has deemed Project Natal to have far more potential than the Sony Wiimote. FACE.
"In my opinion (and it is only an opinion--I know nothing about their real motives), Sony is trying to create an answer to the success of the Wii, and is hopeful that by offering the EyeWand (no idea what it will be called), any remaining undecided console purchasers may be influenced by the new controller and may choose a PS3 over a Wii," he offers. "To some extent, I think that this strategy will work. Microsoft, on the other hand, appears to me to be focused upon expanding its reach within existing Xbox 360 households by introducing Natal. Games for Natal could be relatively simple if offered on XBLA for $10, and many old arcade-style games could be retrofitted to work with Natal.
"Most important to Microsoft is to convert non-gamers into users of the Xbox 360, whether that is through simpler games, access to Netflix, Facebook, Twitter or Last.fm, or some other non-gaming access. Natal is structured much like the iPhone interface, but instead of physically touching the screen, a user makes a motion at the screen. I think that this will be intuitive to many, and will expand Xbox 360 household usage beyond the core gamer and to others within the household."
Will Sony's "me too" strategy work, or will Microsoft's attempt to remove all form of control whatsoever come out on top? Let your own judgment be known!
Contest:
9:00 PM on 10.15.2009
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"In my opinion (and it is only an opinion--I know nothing about their real motives)...
...the guy isn't really being a jerkoff considering he is willingly admitting it's nothing but his opinion. Can't be terribly angry about that.
There's a big risk in using a camera instead of a remote. A lot of room for error. I still haven!r gotten over the PS2 EyeToy. *shudders*
Like what? Other than racing games I can't think of anything else.
However, I think Sony's controls will mesh better with current games. If they can put 2 or 3 buttons on each motion controller, they don't need a nunchuck-type thing or have you hold a DS3 in your other hand.
From what I can tell, the Sony motion controller has better precision than the Wii Motion Plus, and I think they can really take a lot of Wii games to the next level--so there's potential for some really great porting of Wii games to the PS3 (i.e., Epic Mickey, etc.). But in that case, Sony's going to have to hold back all the shovel-ware and only allow the popular titles to make it to their System.
But, on the other hand, I guess it doesn't matter which one is technically better, it's all in the implementation and people's perception.
Anyway, as far as Pachter goes, I can tell he's really rooting for MS, so this news is no surprise.
And why doesn't he mention multi-array microphone and depth sensor:
http://prnatal.com/moreinfo.html
Are they really so cheap?
Anyway Natal seems to be to revolutionary to sell it at a price of a simple cheap accessory.
Sony are trying to expand their current customers experience by adding motion controls, whereas ms are going for their bit of the casual market.
I look forward to playing proper games, rpgs, shooters, rts, driving games etc with the eyewand, but i don't care for the kickball shovelware that natal caters to.
No doubt there will be shovelware on the ps3, but i think there will be more proper games that utilise eyewand than natal.
But that is just my opinion.
Or...
They'll both be awesome and shit in their own funny little ways.
this quote is so fail it make the wii sound F*****g amazing.
Please don't make these things requisite for gaming. I don't want to move around, I don't want to move my coffee table, and I don't want these things.
It's not that I want either company to fail. I'd hate for either of them to lose enough money on this stuff to where the companies have to go the way of the Dreamcast, but I don't know if I want to participate in a gaming market where motion controls are mandatory.
It will have cured one of the great scourges of gamedom.
- Boxers or Briefs?
- Coke or Pepsi?
- Chocolate that tastes like Shit or Shit that tastes like Chocolate?