14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida believes that motion controls, such as his company's own PS Move, will once again enter the mainstream as soon as virtual reality devices, like the upcoming Project Morpheus, become a reality.
Motion controls and the whole motion gaming experience was quite huge a few years ago, owing much to the easy to pick up Nintendo Wii U, which in turn led to Sony and Microsoft launching their own devices, in the form of the PlayStation Move and the Kinect.
However, slowly but surely, these technologies lost their Steam and went on to become lackluster experiments, in the case of PS Move, or misunderstood peripherals, in the form of the Kinect.
Looking back on the PlayStation Move in particular, Sony's Shuhei Yoshida emphasizes that the technology was maybe a bit ahead of its time, due to the not so impressive feel of using the device alongside the 2D TV screen.
"Motion gaming was a big thing but, like with social games, dance games, music or guitar games, I don’t think there’s a lot of appetite for another motion game at this moment," he tells PocketLint.
"However, what we are realizing ourselves is that PS Move was a bit ahead of its time – a precise and accurate 3D input device. We were very excited about the possibility of using 3D positional tracking to make games, but it’s really hard to do so with a regular 2D screen."
However, Yoshida is confident that, thanks to virtual reality devices like Sony's own Project Morpheus, the PS Move can become quite popular, as its accurate motion detection works great with the VR headset.
"So now we are realizing that when we do Project Morpheus the one thing you want to do immediately is interact with an object in virtual space, and the one way to do that is that you need a 3D positioning input device, like PS Move."
Even the PS Camera will become much more popular thanks to Project Morpheus, as it's needed to ensure accurate head tracking for those who wear the headset. For now, Yoshida highlights that the peripheral is popular with those who use the PS4 as a streaming platform.
"The one big feature that the PS Camera offers people now is the ability to stream themselves. People enjoy that. And it’s not just people streaming through PlayRoom, but people streaming their gameplay understand that viewers enjoy watching more if they put their cameras on their faces along with commentary. That’s the driving feature for the camera now. And Project Morpheus requires the camera. So when we have that ready for launch, more people will be interested to have PlayStation Camera."
Project Morpheus, at least right now, still doesn't have a concrete release schedule and Sony isn't ready to confirm its release plans for the virtual reality device.