Richard Marx, designer of the PlayStation Move
This fall, both Sony and Microsoft are releasing motion-based add-ons to the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. Did you really think they’d be civil?
In a recent interview with the UK’s Edge Magazine, Dr. Richard Marx, the designer of the PlayStation move was asked what he thinks about Microsoft’s Kinect and its controller free approach to gaming. As you could expect, the results were less than flattering.
“I don’t think that point of view is quite right. When we did EyeToy we wanted to create a new way to play games but we didn’t want to replace the existing way. I think that you can do some things really well with just a camera, or just a 3D camera, but there’s just some stuff you can’t do as well,” said Marx. “There’s a bunch of experiences you could never do as well. I think our system is really flexible because we still have a camera — we could still do all the stuff EyeToy did and more — but we also have this more high-fidelity controller which you hold in your hand and is tracked really accurately, and you have the buttons.”
Echoing the sentiment of every piece of Sony marketing from Kevin Butler to the silly Yaybuttons.com , Marx went on to talk about how he thought buttons were an integral part of any gaming experience. ” Buttons are irreplaceable as an input device. Too many buttons are overwhelming, but one single action button is very powerful feeling. For core games you really do need a set of buttons to quickly choose things. Trying to replace buttons with gestures doesn’t work very well.”
The PlayStation Move launched this past week, we gave it B- rating. Kinect launches November 4, expect a full review.
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