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What We Liked:
- True 1:1 gaming. The PlayStation Move in comparison to the WiiMotion Plus is extremely accurate. Its very precise and very articulate. It forces you to play it right. It almost makes the Wiimote feel gimmicky. The Wii doesn't seem to care what way you're moving the Wiimote as long as you're moving it. The Move seems to work quite differently. If you're turning a crank, there's a specific way to turn hold that crank to turn it. Its all about that sense of precision, natural feel and sense of immersion. We found it was also a more immersive and realistic Ping-Pong experience. There were more options and felt deeper than others we had played. Its great for shooters for pin point accuracy of sniping. The only enemy you've got going against you is your steady hands. It also tracks my full movement. If I duck, it ducks. If I turn my wrist, it turns its wrist mimicking my actions.
- "It has what we of the future like to call buttons." Kevin Butler is absolutely right. Particularly with shooters which has an edge over the competition already. The necessity of buttons is there. Its also important as the Wiimote has to have that force feedback. It definitely adds to the experience. I suppose in this same section, the PlayStation Move doesn't require a tether. Both the Move controller and Nav Controller have Li-ion batteries in them. Charge em up and you're good to go. Not cord tangling. Everything is right there to start up a game, end a game, eject a disk whatever. I don't have to trade out for anything else except a blu-ray remote control.
- Sony is backing this device much more than its competition. Its focused equally as much on its hardcore gaming fanbase. Sony has always catered primarily to the hardcore gaming audience. Though they've branched out and tried the casual market, they've still tried to toss something out for their loyalists. They have even opted to integrate the PlayStation Move into some of the previous titles like Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition, Heavy Rain, MAG, LittleBIGPlanet while still putting out several titles. Sorcery and Socom 4 should be the next titles to support it and if rumors hold up, we'll be seeing it in InFamous 2 and Metal Gear: Rising. I've never been a big FPS fan, but the Move gives me a new way to experience them.
- The glowing orb makes it all possible with the use of the PlayStation Eye. The orb does 50% of the work and even changes color just for fun. Find an old vile sitting on a table in a lab, its had time to settle to a blue-ish color. Well, shake that sucker up, when the light turns green, the vile's clean so drink up!
- Skeletal structure. Sometimes its fun to set down the Move controller and just move your body like crazy. That's where games like Kung-Fu Live come into play. Spread yourself out, let the PlayStation Eye track your skeletal movement and go kick some ninja butt. That's right. The PlayStation Eye also offers a controller free experience. Its been around since the Eye Toy or maybe even the Sega Activator. Its not as advanced as the Kinect, but still offers that option.
- It works with just about everything. Use the Move with your XMB navigating, getting around the PlayStation Store or even while watching Netflix. (Haven't tried it in Home yet, but I don't know how I'd use it.)
- Its games are cheaper. While Microsoft has chosen to price point its games with the Wii to compete at $50, Sony only charges $40 for its basics. Obviously games like LittleBIGPlanet, Killzone 3, Socom 4 etc, will still go for $59.99, but Sony has chosen to make its game $10 cheaper than its competition.
What We Didn't Like:
- Calibrating can be a bit of a chore. In some games, it works out just fine. In some instances, I'll have to recalibrate. This is sometimes dependent on the lighting conditions. If there isn't enough light in the room, or there's too much light, the device will freak out. This kills gaming experiences like Resident Evil where its fun to play with the surround sound cranked up and the lights off. Why its this way, I don't know.
- Controller free gaming commands a lot of space. Its possible to have controller free gaming but you're going to need a good eight feet for it to function properly. It also has more of a focus on augmented reality than the Move system does with using avatars. Still, for most of us, eight feet is a lot of space. Plus, I think my guy was missing a leg at some points though I don't recall a katana cutting it off. Also, even though the game was supposed to be a controller free experience, I still had to use a controller to navigate my way around and exit the game.
- The controllers add up. Really, the only thing that sets the PlayStation Move at a disadvantage when compared to the price of the Wii setup, is the fact you need the PlayStation Eye that can set you back an extra $40. However, if you don't have an eye, PlayStation has a start-up bundle that comes with the Eye, the Move controller and a game for $99. A Move controller costs about $10 more than a Wiimote.
- Sometimes to get precision, you're gonna need anywhere from two to four. The PlayStation Move Navigation controller right now doesn't have a very large role other than to move your character around screen. The Wii Nun chuck has its own form a motion control. If the Nav Controller has it, we haven't yet seen it. This means that for the best experience with some games, you'll need to Move controllers. Its understandable since its more precise than the Nun chuck is, and some games like Sports Champions, you can get by with one, it just feels weird to only have one, and when you are using two, there's no analog stick so you end up move the controllers to the left and right (as in Gladiator on Sports Champions) or hold down a trigger button and make the gesture. What more can the Nav controller do?
- Software shortage. Its difficult when comparing this to the other forms of motion control because speaking for hardcore gamers, its pretty much even ground, to some extent. The Wii has a lot of software to support the Wiimote in general. As was already specified in the WiiMotion Plus portion, there's next to nothing. However, for the hardcore game, most Wii Software is shovelware anyway and aren't a lot of games for the hardcore gamer. In my time, I've seen Wii owners jump ship to the PS3 or 360 because of this. Kinect has a few titles to support its motion control device as well. The PlayStation Move is the same really. It has a few titles and more to give its hardcore gamers than the competition, but its still pretty sparce. You do see more motion control addition to PlayStation Move multi-platform games however, than you do against its other HD competition. I get the feeling its easier to integrate motion gaming into the PS3 with Move than the Kinect.
As far as longevity goes so far. I see the PlayStation Move taking the win. There are more titles that support it that cater to the hardcore gamer. Its precise, its comfortable and its familiar to those who'd been gaming on the Wii for so many years. Sony has also been in the gaming industry much longer and has stronger first-party support than both Microsoft and Nintendo. Sony is more aggressively pushing its motion control device as well. Microsoft backed its device heavily until its release, now Microsoft has sat back and waited with very little software. Find out more in the on the Kinect in Part 3.
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