On a technical level I’m in love with motion controllers. They represent quite a few innovations that until just recently were out of the reach of the every day consumer. The release of the Wii put cheap, relatively accurate motion detection in the hands of hackers all over the world and saw the technology spread to many other sectors. Whilst I haven’t given any love to Microsoft’s Kinect the possibility of being able to do your own in home motion capture with the camera that powers it is a pretty cool prospect and I know it won’t be long before the hackers get their hands on similar tech and start wowing us with the applications. We already know my stance on the Playstation Move, with its oodles of technology packed into a hand sized magic wand.
Still if you walk into my living room that’s adorned with consoles, computers and all kinds of gadgets and gizmos the only evidence you’ll find of me having any interest in this area is a single Wiimote controller hidden away in a drawer with no console in sight. I only have the controller as my previous house mate was the one who bought the Wii and stubbornly refused to buy any more controllers for it. Wanting to actually play some games I forked out the $100 to get one but later ended up co-opting it for all sorts of nefarious purposes, using it to play World of Warcraft and a semi-successful attempt at using head tracking in EVE online. After we parted ways though I hadn’t had any compelling reasons to buy a Wii console save for maybe Trauma Center which I was only ever able to locate twice but never made the jump to purchase.
It’s not like I’m above buying an entire console for a single game either, I bought a Xbox 360 just for the chance to play Mass Effect the day it came out. More it’s that nearly every game on the Wii that I’ve wanted to play has either had a cross platform release or has been nothing more than a passing curiosity. I’d even told myself at one point that when they brought the black version of the Wii out I’d purchase one (it would match my PS3 and new Xbox 360 if I got one) but even after that happened I still couldn’t pony up the cash to get one, it just felt like a waste of money.
It could be that I really haven’t been giving my consoles a whole lot of love lately. The last two console games I played were Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake, both engaging games but since then my attention has almost entirely been captured by Starcraft 2. I must admit I was intrigued by the prospect of replaying through Heavy Rain using the Move controller but other than that I don’t think there’s any other games out there that make use of motion controllers that I’d actually find appealing. In fact looking over the catalogue they all look to be aimed at a certain demographic: those who are traditionally non-gamers.
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise as that’s the exact strategy Nintendo had when they first released the Wii, focusing more on the non-gamer crowd and heavily promoting the social aspect of it. As the Kinect and Move are both reactions to the Wii’s success it follows that their target demographic is identical as well. For the long time gamers like myself this hasn’t really endeared the motion controllers to us as the games really aren’t designed for us. Sure there are some notable exceptions but for the most part those who identify themselves as gamers probably won’t be investing too much in these new fangled exercise inducing devices. That doesn’t mean they won’t be successful however.
There is the chance that these motion controllers will make their way into my living room by virtue of integration with other products. I’ve been eyeing off one of the newer Xbox 360 for a while now as it’s quite a looker and has the benefit of not sounding like a jet engine when it’s loading a game. My natural engineering curiosity will probably see a move controller work its way into my living sometime in the future as well but until someone demos some cool hack that I just have to try it will be a while before that comes to pass. The Wii will more than likely stay on the back burner for a long time to come but there’s always the chance of a Mass Effect event happening that overrides the more frugal parts of my brain.
