Source: BLAZE
For those that don't know, Sony announced earlier this year that they would be adding motion control in conjunction with the Playstation eye:
The eye will capture the movements and correlate that information with the console. It works in a very similar way to the Wii does. Though, it won't use infrared. There are irregularities with infrared, as you've seen with current Wii games that aren't developed by Nintendo.
From my understanding of this motion capturing system, it is video reliant and will still require a direct line of sight. I'm unsure of its accuracy, but from play test demos, they prove to be the level of at least the Wii Motion Plus. The demo also used glowing wands, not this new design, which is why it is a bit concerning.
Although, they may be switching from glowing orb thingys to electric razor according to this patent.
Source: Slash Gamer
In either case, I would like to say to those thinking that this is ripping off the Wii, you're right. I would like to defend Sony a little more, but they are a bit late to this whole motion controller thing and not bringing anything necessarily new to it aside from a more powerful graphics engine. There are a few promising things however, such as the new Resident Evil 5 redo with motion control elements implemented into it.
Allow me to say this as well: "STOP USING MOTION CONTROL." I mean that to all video game parties. Motion control is a very cool concept, but it leads to some pretty disappointing developments. This is in no way the fault of game developers, but rather the limitations of technology. Wii was a very poor attempt and people became quite disillusioned once they realized the peaks of what the was possible with the system.
Let's be honest, when was the last time you played with your Wii if you have also have a PS3 or 360? It gets shoved aside, only to come out when parties or family members are over. It's a great gimmick, but when the time comes for a fun game to play, one usually just plops down on the couch to play a little Gears of War or Uncharted 2.
Humans in general are a touchy feely group of people. People complain about the iPhone not having a tactile keyboard. No one wants to "imagine" that they have a sword in their hands, they have to hold that real thing (as any LARP'er will tell you). Pretending that you have something and seeing it on the screen and not having any haptic feedback aside from a buzzing controller, is very disappointing to the mind. Having a controller at all is great because you get to mash buttons and what not. Which leads me to my next point.
Project Natal
This is a complete motion capturing system that requires only your body and a few voice commands. It captures your movements directly without any controller guiding it. While this is a cool concept, nothing good can come from this. Keep in mind some of the demos: A game where you interact with a small male child (creepy) and various pong games that use your body as the paddle. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING... and creepy.
Most of these are just rehash things that were originally tried on the Wii with a slightly higher level of success. Imagine trying to play Halo with these motion controls. You'd look like a complete douche, running in place, pointing your fingers like you had a gun in your hand. What's that you say? You'd probably use the controller in conjunction with the motion control? Then what the fuck was the motion control for then?
What games need to do now a days, in this slowly recovering economy, is not give us some new piece of technology which is still unstable to be of any real use, but to give us games that really show innovation within themselves. As far as that dynamic goes, Heavy Rain and Alan Wake prove to be two game changers that can actually show us what video games are really capable of. And neither of those have anything to do with motion control at all.
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