14 DAY TRIAL // Soon, we'll be playing Fable III by actually walking in place to move the character around the game world, with only the more casual of us selecting an in-game multiplier, which makes one real-life step translate into 100 in game.
Soon, we'll be jumping over cover in Uncharted 3 by actually grabbing the Move controller like a small ledge all the while looking around with our three-dimensional goggles to spot potential threats in the lush, complex environment delivered by the PlayStation 3. Soon, we'll crave for having controllers with tons of buttons and sitting on the couch not moving anything but our finger in order to make Nathan Drake or any adventurer pull outrageous moves on screen.
Gaming companies are trying to make motion tracking sound great. Kinect will be lag-free, says Microsoft. Move will make accurate motion possible, states Sony. They need the new peripherals to succeed in order to extend the life of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, respectively. They need them to succeed in order to get more revenue, convincing us to buy them to avoid having warehouses full of the things lying around at some point in early 2011.
But gaming doesn't really need Kinect and PlayStation Move. The Nintendo Wii is a huge success because of motion-based gaming and everyone who needs to use their hands and feet to game and have fun can get one and have some pretty amazing experiences. Because that is what gaming is all about: experiences.
And everything we have seen linked to Kinect and Move seems like ideas that could have been just as well done on the Wii, maybe with the help of a few hardware updates here and there. As long as Microsoft and Sony, with the game developers who are working for them, don't hit on a completely fresh concept that only works with their new hardware, most of the world will continue buying the Wii, some will hang on to the controller, and those who get the new devices will be a bit disappointed.