Martin: Motion sensitive gaming systems from Sony and Microsoft are on show, the Tokyo game show but neither company had any significant updates on the progress of their development. The biggest piece of news came from Sony which said it’s motion controller will be launch in Japan next spring, but said nothing about the price or launch in other markets. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s software studios said the company had initially thought the controller would attract casual gamers to the PS3, but its focus now widened to also include core gamers.
Shuhei: The real technology and started experimenting with, you know, game prototype, and showed it to consumers, we really, you know, discover that this technology is very, very real with type of games that the core gamers want.
Martin: Microsoft to demonstrated its Project Natal system at TGS, but only to media and invited guest inside a room in the show floor. Natal uses an infrared camera to track the gamer so their entire body becomes the controller. Because it’s infrared, they don’t need to hold on to anything.
Kudo: So it’s simple and approachable and anybody can get in and play right away and have fun.
Martin: Tsunoda demonstrated a game where the player has to jump around and shoot balls back towards a wall of blocks, it appears much more engaging and intense than using a handheld controller, like that on the Wii or the Sony prototype device. Microsoft to says it will benefit both casual and core gamers, but today there are few details on what games will feature the technologies and how they’ll be used.
Phil: Natal breaks down in to a few different components, there is voice recognition, facial recognition, gesture recognition as well as full body mapping. And that actually put a lot of tools in the hands of the content creators even experiences or maybe somebody has a controller and another thing in their hand, you can add on top with Project Natal and put some hybrid experiences, but I also think you’ll see some truly immersive story telling techniques for a core gamers come to life with Natal.
Martin: Sony’s demonstration included Capcoms Resident Evil 5 and its own little big planet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be part of the lineup of games for the motion controller. In Tokyo, this is Martin Williams, IDG News Service.
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