14 DAY TRIAL // PlayStation Move from Sony and Project Natal from Microsoft will be two of the most hyped up devices at the upcoming E3 trade show, both companies hoping that the motion tracking peripherals will allow them to catch up with the Nintendo Wii in terms of market share. And all videogame developers, regardless of their preferred genre, must be thinking about how the new technology might impact their upcoming titles.
The two founders of role playing game specialist studio BioWare, Ray Muzika and Greg Zeschuk, are not ready to talk about whether they plan to introduce motion control in series like Mass Effect or Dragon Age but, as part of an interview with IndustryGamers, they talked about the new possibilities opened up by motion tracking.
Mr. Zeschuk said, “I think trying to figure out the meaningful motions... motions that are best to actually enhance RPGs are interesting. One interesting thing is to imagine Mass Effect with being able to kind of like use certain gestures could change the conversation or stop it, and you could actually pull your finger and pretend you're shooting the guy for the renegade action.”
Mr. Muzyka agreed, adding, “The challenge is finding ways to remove those barriers that don't create new barriers like having your arms get tired from waving the controller around, things like that. If you can do that, I think there's a real opportunity.”
Both BioWare heads are eager to see what Sony and Microsoft are offering and believe that implementations like Milo, which was shown by Peter Molyneux last year, are perfect to display what Move and Natal can do.
At the moment, BioWare is working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO based on the popular game universe, but resources are also devoted to a Dragon Age sequel, with the launch date expected in early 2011, and to Mass Effect 3.