Sony Going For The Core With Motion Games.

By Nick Wingfield

Sony and Microsoft both made big plays for gamer families over the holidays with their respective devices for controlling games with body motions, the PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect. Sony thinks it now has an edge on Microsoft as it goes after diehard gamers with its motion device.

In an interview, John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony’s US games division, says Sony is “layering on more and more core titles” in the coming months, referring to games aimed at “hardcore” players who are the most avid purchasers and players of games. Those players tend to favor more immersive games, often shooters and other titles with especially intense, realistic action.

With PlayStation Move and Kinect, Sony and Microsoft initially both went after more casual players with dancing, light-hearted sports and arcade-style games that exploit their different motion systems. Sony’s Koller, though, says the technology behind Kinect – a camera and sensor-based system that tracks players’ bodies – can’t match the greater precision of PlayStation Move, which uses a camera to track the movement of a handheld controller shaped like an ice cream cone.

That tracking precision is key for doing certain hardcore motion-games like shooters, he says. “The limitations are such that you can’t create all the games you want to do,” Koller says of Kinect, adding that Sony has experimented with its own Kinect-like technology.

One example: Sony in April plans to release an installment of a popular combat game – SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALS – that exploits PlayStation Move to give players a more intuitive way of locking a gun onto a target than the traditional method of moving a gun sight with a joystick. In a demonstration of the game, Travis Steiner, lead designer of SOCOM 4, also shows how a game character quickly switches to a knife attack when a player thrusts the PlayStation Move controller forward.

A Microsoft spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But sales of Kinect so far are brisk, with Microsoft shipping 8 million of the devices in the 60 days after the product went on sale in early November.

Sony said at the end of November that it had shipped 4.1 million PlayStation Moves since the product went on sale in mid-September. Sony’s Koller said Microsoft’s Kinect shipment number is “very impressive” but Sony is “happy where we are in the market.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/13/sony-going-for-the-core-with-motion-games/

The battle is not over, yet.

I agree, Kinect numbers are impressive, but that device is splitting the audience. This could be a problem, because M$ has to serve both camps and be careful to not disregard either of them.

Sony is in the better position, because they just have to make their games move compatible which should be way easier than with Kinect.

After all is said and done, i think Move will outsell Kinect, imho.

I'm glad he gave his opinion and didn't bash the competition while doing it. I'm not a fan of either technology but out of the two I could see myself getting move.

There going for the center? Thats nice to hear.

I think sony can do it. They can pull off motion gaming for the hardcore. I know hardcore players tend to be stuck in the stone ages with their controllers but motion gaming is fun too and with the right games, they can grab a hold of that audience, which is something that Nintendo and the Wii failed miserably to do. They went for cheap shovelware and profit with casual players over real, returning, devoted gamers, but hey, whatever pays the bills.

soon or later the blue casual ocean will turn red and the red core ocean will be back to blue once those fake core gamers who where trolling the wii at the beginning of this gen show their true faces gaming will be back to quality titles instead of waterdown dumbdown games

This is good to hear.  I'm so tired of watered down games like Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joyride. Dance Central is the only game that is appealing to me on Kinect.

Are there even any good games on Move yet either? 

Lets make some good games already.  Move has not released anywhere near the quality of games that it had promised so far. 

Well I have two Move controllers and I think it's a stunning piece of kit. Kinect is 'right now' too casual for me, but it's early days and I want to see how that horror game that's been announced for Kinect plays out. In the short term though I'm enjoying using the Move for Sports Champions, Heavy rain, Resident Evil 5 etc.

I knew the Move was going after the core. That thing has too many  buttons and is full of awesomeness!

Microsoft is aiming for the bigger casual market, when there's a potential for targeting  small section of core gamers. If its the userbase they are trying to increase, Wii is still a threat with better compatible and higher number of titles (Note here the fact: better compatible and higher number- means Kinect sensors needs to do its extra job and we all know what). With more number of core titles built compatible to Playstation Move, its possible that the Move might stand a better chance of outselling Kinect in the long run.