Kinect and Move - Can Motion Control Ever Succeed? - Extra Credits

Okay, we got things back under control here. The artist is restrained. Everyone knows this dark green thing is a tie. The inbox isn't overflowing quite as much. We're on track. Speaking of the inbox, one of our most popular requests has been the subject of motion controls. Um motion controls. We would all love for gaming technology to achieve this someday, but in the meantime a lot of us aren't completely sold on these. Will they succeed? Let's talk about it. But first, you can't really discuss motion controls without starting with the Wii. Nintendo's unusual little console introduced the idea of robust motion controls into home gaming, opening the market to new design concepts and a whole array of potential new experiences. More importantly, it significantly broadened the market for video games, introducing whole new segments of the population to gaming. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the Wii isn't where I spend much of my time. The type of games most of us play are usually better suited to your standard

controller or a mouse and a keyboard. And I mean, well, you know, the Wii. But still, from a designer's perspective, we're still fascinated by the thing. Do we spend much time playing it? Not really. But are we glad for the industry that the Wii exists? You better believe it. Motion controls may not be our thing, but no one can deny that the Wii has had a big impact on video games. And on the whole, I'd say a lot of that impact is going to end up being positive in the long run. Which brings us to the immediate future for motion controls, Kinect and Move. Commence speculation. Let's start by looking at when the Kinect and Move projects must have begun. Remember, these are major initiatives by enormous corporations. At the very latest, these projects must have been brainstormed back in 2008, back when the Wii was still printing money faster than Nintendo could build consoles, and the future of the 360 and the PS3 looked pretty bleak by comparison. Obviously, things have normalized a bit now, but at the time Wii sales looked like they were going to eclipse both of the other consoles combined. Unfortunately, somewhere up the echelons in Microsoft and Sony, someone declared that motion controls were the future and that in order to

capitalize on this new limitless market that we had cracked open, they had to begin building motion controls for their own consoles. Okay, speculation over. Mostly. So now we have Move and Kinect. Unfortunately, it seems that our industry hasn't learned a key lesson. A lesson that every console cycle has proven. Good hardware is nice to have, but it's software, not hardware, that makes a system successful. Right now, the Move and the Kinect just seem to be trying to hop on the Wii bandwagon. There may be some interesting in the technology, sure, but most of the games look like a lineup of Wii clones with a HD coat of paint. Now, only time will tell, but this approach seems doomed to fail for a myriad of reasons. Number one, the people who want to play Wii games already bought a Wii so that they could play Wii games. Number two, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners who don't own Wiis already probably aren't that interested in Wii games. Number three, let's say someone really wants a Wii, but for some reason doesn't own one already. They're probably aren't going to spend hundreds of extra dollars and sort through all the confusing peripherals just so they can have an HD Wii experience. Most of them are just

going to buy the Wii they wanted in the first place. Number four, Nintendo's internal development teams are pretty damn good at making Wii games. Way better than the companies working exclusively for Sony and Microsoft are likely to be. Nothing against those guys or anything, but Nintendo's got a 5-year head start and well, you know, they're pretty good at making first-party games. Number five, high definition doesn't really add much to the Wii experience. And then there's the general confusion Microsoft and Sony's products are going to generate. Having motion controls as a peripheral, an add-on rather than an integral part of the system, creates multiple levels of confusion. First off, they've created brand confusion. It's hard to market your console to the Wii audience and the current 360 and PS3 audiences at the same time. We're kind of different. Second, they've created consumer confusion. Sony and Microsoft are reaching out to casual players here. Many of whom may never have owned game systems before. Do you think these poor people are prepared to wrap their heads around the differences between hardware SKUs and different peripherals and all that jumbled mess. And then after all that, they have to figure out how to set all this hardware up. It's a lot to sort out when you aren't already familiar with this stuff.

Third, they've created developer confusion. With the Wii, a developer has specific input devices he can always count on the player owning. Remote, Nunchuk. Maybe a balance board or something, but definitely the remote and Nunchuk. That's not going to be true of the 360 and the PS3 anymore. Do you plan your game around the player owning Kinect or not? That's not a trivial decision for a studio starting up a project right now. In fact, I'm willing to bet at least one studio will end up shutting down because they took the wrong side on this bet. So, why are Sony and Microsoft doing this? I'll tell you. It's important to remember Microsoft and Sony aren't just being stupid here. This is a very calculated decision on their part. See, while Nintendo has been selling the Wii at a nominal profit almost since launch, the 360 and the PS3 are much more expensive to produce and have actually cost Microsoft and Sony money for every unit sold. That adds up and both companies are hoping to usher in a new paradigm with Kinect and Move. Rather than discarding your console to buy a newer generation machine, just buy an upgrade for your current system instead. If Sony and Microsoft can get their users to upgrade their consoles through peripherals and plugins, they can vastly

extend the life cycle of their current hardware, meaning they don't have to incur those costly initial manufacturing stages quite so often. The 360 Kinect is essentially the next gen Xbox 360. They're not going to release an upgrade of this size and then invalidate it by announcing a new console right after. Although, I suppose they could if their next major console was Kinect compatible, but whatever, you see what I'm getting at. So, do I think the Move and the Kinect will succeed? If these guys want to beat Nintendo at their own game, they're going to have to do something new, something exciting that the Wii isn't already offering us at a cheaper price. And this shouldn't be too hard for them to do, either, because both Kinect and Move can do things a Wii remote can't. But so far, most everything we've seen coming down the pipe is looking pretty familiar. Nintendo markets the Wii toward the casual, family, and youth audiences because they know we don't need Mario and Zelda ads to tell us where to get our fix. And the PS3 and the 360 have been marketing toward the core audience up until now. But if Move and Kinect are to succeed, Sony and Microsoft are going to have to figure out how to brand their machines as the console for everyone, and that's not going to be easy. But most of all, the future of these

peripherals depends on developer support. How many studios not directly owned by Sony and Microsoft are going to be willing to take a gamble on these new devices? And how soon can they start turning out truly innovative games for them? The casual Wii audience is big, but it's not infinite. Overall, I'd say these two devices have a pretty tough road ahead of them. But before the motion control haters among us start jumping for joy, think about this. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into these projects. If these things fail, the game industry is in for a few lean years of recovery. If Kinect and Move bomb, expect to see a lot of people losing jobs. Studios are going to have to play it a little safer for a while, so you're going to see fewer ambitious games being green-lit. And a lot of studios may have to close down if they end up betting on the wrong horse. Kinect and Move may not matter much to you, but don't go thinking they're not going to have some impact on gaming for you one way or another. So, let's cross our fingers and hope the industry wizards can come up with some motion control games we can all enjoy for everybody's sake. Uh, that one kind of turned into a downer. Allison, can you help to cheer this thing up?

Aw. Yeah, that helps a little. All right, see you guys next week.