The wii sensor bar and move camera are used for pointing controls, which are for instance used in FPS games. Motion gaming is still possible without the cameras. Games like Wii Sports and Pokepark Wii can be played without the sensor bar. (Which means no camera is needed.)

BTW, the wii infrared camera is hidden in the wii mote. It's the black part on front of the Wiimote.

I'm just being pedantic, the camera is the PS eye, though it does come with EyePet

hmm you might be able to do the bow shooting but it would be like, you know them phones that you can tilt left and right to move say a ball on screen it would be like that not very effective. I dont know about the party game. without the wii cam which is owned by ubisoft you definitely can't get the user on screen. with wii motion plus you might be able to do it but I have never used it and I don't know how well it is able to determine the position of the user in the room. 

no, they had designed the camera for the get go to be used for for motion controls. that is why they didn't use the old Eyetoy tech, but gave it a complete overhaul, to make the pseye ready to do what it is used for now.

this is from an interview from 2007:

The basic idea for Playstation Eye was to create a device for interactive gaming and enhanced communication. It was designed specifically to be used with PS3.
We learned a lot of things from our experience with EyeToy. The initial design meeting for what would become Playstation Eye was called by Phil Harrison. It included myself and key designers and engineers from the EyeToy game teams of SCEE [Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.] We sought to address some of the issues of EyeToy, but also add some new capabilities as well, keeping in mind all along the PS3 as the intended platform.
For designing the camera portion, there were many, many, agonizing trade-offs. Resolution vs. light sensitivity vs. framerate vs. dynamic range. There are also field of view and bandwidth and compression issues. To guide us through this, we created several usage scenarios and scored the importance of each design criteria for that scenario. For the final design, the interactive gameplay and communication scenarios were weighted as the most important for PS3.
As I mentioned already, our previous experience with EyeToy was invaluable. Low-light performance was viewed as a key issue. Also, we felt a big factor of EyeToy's success was the responsiveness imparted by its 60 frames per second framerate, so we made that a minimum requirement. The compression block artifacts of EyeToy are visually unappealing, and they also limit some of our algorithms, so we pushed for uncompressed video. And finally, the many game ideas put forth by the designers suggested the need for two different fields of view.

http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66891

Camera isn't exactly the right word - the black thing on the front of the Wii Remote is an infrared light sensor. It reports the two-dimensional position of up to four infrared lights it "sees" (but only two infrared lights are actually being used).

it's a different approach - both systems track lights, but on the Wii it can only be used for pointing on the screen. PS Move on the other hand uses the light tracking to detect the controller's exact position in space. That method can be used for pointing on the screen as well, but it needs more motion. When it comes to on-screen pointing, the Wii Remote works like a laser pointer while PS Move works like Minority Report.

In the end, PS Move can do anything the Wii Remote can, but it can also do most things Kinect can:

okay, trying to compile all the thoughts from the various posts into just one...

ArnoldRimmer is pretty much right in that "camera" isn't exactly the right word.  on the front of the wii mote is an IR detector,...IR stands for infra-red with is light but it light that is not visible to the human eye.  it's a lot like a camera but i should probably avoid useing that word.

in the base wii-mote the IR detector is use for pointer controlls.  the IR detector see the two IR light sources and can determine where you are pointing.  have you ever use the wii mote for pointing and had it act erractically where the pointer keeps fluctuating between two locations on the screen?  that's caused when the IR source bounces off a coffee table (ussually) so that the IR detector see 4 IR sources and then doesn't know what the hell to do with that info.

when you add motion-plus to the equation the IR is what keeps the wiimote from having an offset.  basically it centers the signal from errors incurred over time in the motion plus sensors (offset).  this is why motion plus works great when you are pointing at the screen but not so much if the action requires pointed away from the screen (golf swing for instance).

Move uses the same idea and has the same limitations its just (like i said before) in the reverse setup the times where light-source can't see light-detector became much less frequent.

You could still use the Move without the camera but it wouldn't work very well.  the percision would suck quite fast and be very limited.  it basically would be about as effective as the six-axis motion controls as in not very.

so as a rule of thumb...all Move games will require the psEye to be on in order to work.

hmmm, if anyone cares to listen.... let's clear up some incorrect assumptions. While a lot of people had partially right answers. They were presented with some minor errors.

Wiiremote
Motion: The Motion control is related to ONLY the accelerometer inside the Wiiremote. The IR has no effect in the motion controls. There are 3 axis with the accelerometer. XYZ the same component judges both tilt and velocity. Which is why it's fidelity is good, but lacks the ability to track. As once velocity passes a certain amount the Tilt Axis value isn't in the data stream until velocity is slowed down. The MP are components to allow both Velocity and Tilt. The IR has 0 input in regards to the Motion control.

IR: The IR transmitted from the "Sensor Bar" is received by the Wiiremote. Having the Input on the user side allows for precise independent pointer. The 2 Points of the Transmitter allows for tracking distance of the points. The Wider the points the closer the remote. The closer the points the farther. It's parallax at work and something that anyone interested in the technology of these technologies should research on. This is Z depth tracking with precise accuracy because of the 2 HARD points of tracking. Though this tacking can only be done while the Wiiremote is facing the IR points. Which is a bit of a weakness as pointing away from the IR loses Z depth and Pointer. Also the 2 Points allows for a second Z rotation/yaw in the system that's not related to the Z Motion. Though to be clear the Pointer itself and the angle of of the Wiiremote/accelerometer has no influence over the pointer.

Move
Motion: Move Motion works on the same principles as the Wiiremote. It has accelerometer. It works pretty much exactly the same. It also doesn't need MP because...

Motion Tracking: The Move Camera uses Single Point tracking. The glowing ball. Which means that the Move can monitor what position the device is in at all times(as long as it can see the ball). It has a similar weakness to the Wiiremote IR, but because it's a BIG BALL it takes more intention to do so rather that just pointing our of angle as the Wiiremote. The Tracking doesn't require the MP or another 3 accelermeters, because the camera can do that instead. It can monitor the XYZ position & Velocity of the ball. Then determine orientation based on just the Tilt.

Pointer: I'm giving the Move it's own section on this though it's directly related to the Tracking. A single point transmission from the device SUCKS ass as a Pointer. It's a failure. Comes to Parallax again. How does move over come this shortcoming? The Eye get's XYZ position of the device then determines a "line" by knowing the Angles of the Move device. So the Move system requires both the Camera and the accelerometers to make a good pointer. This allows for a more harmonized(good) input rather than independent.(I worry that the unharmonized input of the Wiiremote is a penalty. one that will be proven or disprove with Skyward Sword)

The best thing any of you can do. Is "Do Your Own Research". Check out Parallax, Web camera input, wand input... there is a lot of input that's older and very relevant to the console techs. Don't assume. I've done my research and passed it on to you all. But I know that Fact is not something that many people like to hear. So do your own research that isn't from Sony, MS or Nintendo or other gaming websites. Get real research not bound by fanboy goggles.

So for the OP question. Yes it is massively required. Where as pure motion Wii games do not require the "IR Bar"

edit:
Well there has been some clarifications while I had SLOWLY typed my post. I think Nintendo should release a "new" sensor bar. That has a IR Points, Webcam and Wiispeak. I think Nintendo needs to copy this as it Moves towards community and good mass market ideas.

The sensor bar sends out a signal to the Wiimote that helps with the calibration.  It actually doesn't read anything. 

The Move set up uses motion in the wands plus the light bulbs being read by the Eye controller to get very accurate readings.  So, the camera is needed to help with getting thins to where they need to be in game.

The PSeye is what makes the whole Move system truly 1:1 as in really working in 3 dimensions, far more precise than a Wiimote with motion plus. And you know that thing that happens with the Wiimote, when you lose your pointer on screen 'cause the sensor beam is not receiving the signal properly? That's something that NEVER happens with Move.

PS Eye Specs

New microphone functions

An all-new four microphone array, incorporating multidirectional voice location tracking, enhanced echo cancelling and background noise suppression allows for clear audio chat in even the most noisy of environments, without the need to hold or wear a headset.

Next-generation camera features

A frame rate of up to 120 frames per second allows for super-smooth video and sophisticated low-light operation means that the room doesn’t have to be brightly lit for the camera to deliver crisp, perfectly exposed video. The adjustable zoom lens features a 56º field of view to capture head and shoulders action for close-in audio-visual chat, and a 75º field of view to capture the whole body for a fully physical gaming experience.

Technical Specifications:

• 4 channel audio input:16 bits/channel, 48kHz, SNR 90db
• 56º or 75º Field of View zoom lens
• 2.1 F-stop, <1% distortion, fixed focus (25cm to 8 at 75º FOV)
• 640 x 480 at 60 frames/second
• 320 x 240 at 120 frames/second
• USB2 high-speed data transfer
• Uncompressed video or optional JPEG compression

source:

http://us.playstation.com/corporate/about/press-release/396.html

have you bought your ps3 yet though slimebeast

or are you getting a move bundle