PlayStation Wii? (A look at the PS Wand)

There's no denying that the Nintendo Wii was an overwhelming success. Phenomenally so. (See charts below if you don't believe me... Or check out this cool moving graph)

Not good with numbers? Don't worry, this graph might suit you better...

As you can see, Nintendo is storming ahead with their cheaper products aimed more towards the family, with the technically superior PS3 is left trailing at the back. The main reason for this is said to be the price, although a price drop is imminent for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 (An article written by Krease explains this better)

Either way, with the DS's touch screen and the Wii's motion sensors, both PlayStation and Xbox have been hard at work trying to find NEW and REVOLUTIONARY ways to... Well, rip Nintendo's ideas off.

Therefor it is no surprise that they have both unveiled their new devices for the consoles, Playstation with the PLAYSTATION WAND and Xbox with PROJECT NATAL, at E3 this year. (To be honest, if you didn't know this already then you must have been living under a rock.... Or a non-gamer who mistook this site for some sort of pornography, in which case- here you go)

The two different devices work in completely different ways, but still manage to seemingly steal the Nintendo Wii's control system.


PlayStation seem to have ripped off the Wii mote itself, with the PS3 Wand. It works in conjunction with the PlayStation Eye to give full motion control.

Whereas Xbox have decided to pinch the Wii Motion sensor design with their Project Natal.

However, although both we unveiled at E3, and Project Natal has some pretty interesting concepts, only PlayStation had a working model to show. And what a show that was!



This is the future. By leaning over and copying off Nintendo's paper, PlayStation seem to have vastly improved on the concept. Although the Wii Motion Sensor Plus has been released, it may be too little too late. The future of gaming is almost here and I, for one, cannot wait.

(I know it's taken a while to get here, but this bit is the ACTUAL NEWS I've been working towards here!)

SO- Off the back of this, EA has now stated that they are on board with both Natal and the PS3 Wand. A report published on Eurogamer.net states that EA's head fella, John Riccitiello, confirmed that "early-to-mid 2010" will be the time when the company will reveal exactly how it plans to support the new motion-sensitive control systems.

"We're planning to support both," he stated. "We haven't yet announced our plans to do so, but we shall do so in the right time-frame for that, which is likely to be early-to-mid-2010."

So the future of gaming is looking really interesting... And REALLY close!


-- BIZNITCH --

Sony Don’t Need An Invisible Steering Wheel

If you were delighted at Sony’s “wand” showing this E3, you’ll be even more delighted to know that apparently, you don’t even need the bloody thing. We’re confused - the wand seemed like a great idea, but a new patent has been found by Siliconera that appears to ’scan’ in any household object and use it as a controller. The patent graphics show a bizarre U-shaped block which is translated into a sword on screen, but the text says that the scanner’s abilities will include items such as “coffee mugs, drinking glasses, books [and] bottles” so let’s hope there’s not going to be a Glasgow simulator where you go around smashing stuff on people’s heads.

It appears the the system, which has not yet been officially announced, would request that the user ’show’ the camera different angles of the device in question before it can recognise what it is and what it will be used for in-game. This means that you’ll be able to use your cat as a golf club, for example, or a tin of baked beans instead of a bazooka. It also makes a slight mockery of Microsoft’s invisible steering wheel when you can just use Grandma’s old China plates instead. Whilst in principle this idea is fabulous, I for one assumed Sony were concentrating all their efforts on making the most out of the original wand idea - if the camera can track anything in 3D space, why would we need to buy yet another bit of bloody plastic?

Siliconera have, for some reason, omitted a direct link to the patent but you can see the graphics used in the document via the link in the first paragraph, above.