Motion Controls: Guess Who Wins?

It’s a question we’re commonly asked by members of the media: Between Sony’s PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect (Softkinetic’s iisu and Apple’s iPhone 4 much less often), who wins the battle to bring motion controlled gaming home? Amusingly, the answer may be irrelevant, as we suspect that when it comes to home consoles, the ship has largely sailed with Nintendo’s Wii and Wii MotionPlus accessory. But there’s obviously a growing market for gesture-tracking games, and we’re even more excited about practical everyday applications for the technology, such as being able to turn on the TV, browse your multimedia library or parse through files and folders with a spoken command or snap of your fingers. So in the interest of speaking hypothetically, we thought we’d put on our thinking cap for a moment, and assess the current state of the gaming nation. Following are answers to several of the most common queries we get regarding which manufacturer, control method and console come out on top.

1)  Is Microsoft’s Kinect going to be the dominant force in the race for this technology?

It would be presumptive to declare a winner based on speculative performance and raw technical readouts alone. When it comes to new platform launches, success goes to the firm that is first to deliver must-have software applications that best illustrate the practical and conceptual uses for the system at-hand. As we’’ve seen with devices like the Wii, straightforward technical limitations are less a consideration than genuinely user-friendly interfaces, overall approachability, and the ways in which software makers push the bar in terms of designing programs which clearly demonstrate the hardware’’s potential capabilities.

The big question here: Who’’ll truly be able to create a robust platform designed to support an array of gesture-controlled gaming applications that’’s cost-affordable and instantly conveys the magic of what practical, everyday benefits and prospective wonders this new technology promises. Ultimately though, the irony is that it doesn’t necessarily matter who’ is the dominant force: All options promise to reshape the very way in which we interact with technology and play. Case in point, Microsoft’s Kinect, which – despite a lack of bar-raising game software – intrigues with its options to casually videoconference, engage with virtual pets through physical gestures and manage a media library by using your body and voice as the controller/remote.

2)  We have the Wii. We have Kinect. We have PlayStation Move. We have Softkinetic. We have the iPhone. (We also have a massive headache in the making, but we digress…) Is there an advantage or difference (better or worse) for firms like Apple and Softkinetic compared to what’s being offered by Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony?

Microsoft and Sony’’s advantages are manifold and multi-part, including but not limited to larger resources to throw at carving out a potential market; current dedicated user bases in the tens of millions with an omnipresent appetite for innovative content; a highly-technical, brand-loyal audience and spate of acclaimed software makers at their beck and call to help create compelling games, applications and proofs of concept for these new technologies; and a proven track record that affords them an immediate captive audience of industry watchers and everyday fans alike. But at the same time, these manufacturers’’ solutions will also be tied to proprietary hardware and accessories, and will primarily be designed with a gaming bent, as it’’s currently the core market for the devices which they’’re designed to interact with.

By contrast, Softkinetic’’s solutions are built to work with a wider variety of hardware devices, in more types of business markets and emphasize a wider range of practical daily applications, while also targeting a broader range of users, potentially giving the technology greater flexibility, affordability and reach. At the same time, its focus on a multitude of applications vs. core concentration on a set suite of specific apps may mean that it’’s a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Apple’s iPhone 4 and its six-axis motion sensing gyroscope and accelerometer pairing sit somewhere in-between, being designed for a proprietary handset, but capable of being used by thousands of third-party/bedroom developers for virtually any application they can dream up.

That said, Sony’’s PlayStation Move may be at an inherent disadvantage as compared with its multitude of set-top rivals here. Although it offers precise, near one-to-one parity with physical gestures and on-screen motion, it’’s not a full-body solution and requires the use of handheld hardware that may be off-putting to the lay enthusiast, or at least less likely to impress on the mind of the end-user that it’’s a radical leap forward in interface technology vs. other solutions. Similarly, Apple’s iPhone 4 is likely best-suited to casual, low-end gaming applications given inherent hardware limitations and lesser technical power compared with its beefier adversaries.

3) Are any of these technologies cheaper to implement?  Easier for third parties to use?

All options demand a considerable R&D investment, as regardless of base costs and licensing fees (notwithstanding solutions freely designed for the iPhone and Apple’s App Store, naturally), each requires software makers to design with full 3D controls in mind, a massive paradigm shift compared to the 2D plane on which they currently operate. As such, what we’’re likely to see on all fronts are simple, easily-implemented uses of each technology solution in the immediate time frame, with truly bar-raising applications liable to come sporadically from either creatively gifted start-ups or well-funded internal/external studios given the mandate to create software specifically designed to sell more hardware and accessories.

Softkinetic’’s supposed competitive advantage is that the technology can easily be ported for use on PCs, set-top boxes, arcade machines and general consumer electronics devices in addition to pure gaming hardware, and that it works with a range of different 3D camera solutions, not just a single, custom suite of devices. If it becomes a standardized development platform, it could theoretically be used for a much more robust assortment of applications from physical rehabilitation to interactive TV. Apple’s is that it’s the sole mobile motion control platform capable of offering as many different games and applications at the moment as set-top alternatives.

As you can see, there’s no easy answer. (Although there might be less wordy ones.) The proof, however, will simply be in the pudding in terms of how quickly the aforementioned manufacturers can roll out high-quality gaming experiences for each respective platform. And it doesn’t take a long-winded argument to predict that.

About Scott Steinberg
Scott Steinberg is the CEO of technology and video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and founder of GameExec magazine and Game Industry TV. Hailed as a top tech expert by critics from USA Today to NPR, he’s a frequent on-air analyst for ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.