Sony's New Motion Controller Will Allow Precise Tracking of Movements

Motion sensitive controls are all the rage these days, as Nintendo paved the way with its systems employed on the hugely successful Wii console. Now, stepping this way are both Microsoft and Sony, forgetting that they dismissed motion controls as a fad a few years ago.

We've heard a lot of talk about Project Natal from Microsoft, but during the recently held Developer conference in the UK, Sony showed off a prototype of its own motion sensitive system, in the form of an ensemble of a PlayStation Eye camera and two remotes, very similar to the ones bundled with the Wii.

With the promise to display “a lot more of the new controller,” many people listened to Kish Hirani, the head of developer service at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. He revealed that, while the system would be launched in spring, the devices shown were only prototypes. 

“It doesn't resemble the final unit as such,” Hirani said. The executive showed once again the demo revealed at E3, with the bow and arrow examples and a few other new ones. During the presentation, he called the controller “very, very responsive.”

“It can track true 3D, wherever I move it will fully track on every axis,” he also said. SCEE's Colin Hughes then added that: “We're not getting any lag, which we had with the camera-based stuff on PS3 before.”

“There's a whole spectrum of things you can do with this controller,” Hirani explained. “It picks up all the pitch and movement. It's precise and responsive — the sphere on the front is what the controller is tracking — it uses the full RGB spectrum for the colors.”

Hirani also revealed that, while controllers were available for studios to test out and find ways to implement them, they needed to “make a case” with Sony, as there weren't that many to go around, until the systems entered manufacturing stage.