Since the release of the Wii in 2006, motion sensing has become widely recognized as the way forward for interacting with technology. Motion Sensing has slowly crept in to our gadgets and gizmos, spreading from iPods, cameras and mobile phones, each implementing motion sensing in unique ways. But, as far as gaming is concerned, motion sensing hasn’t advanced like it has in other media. The Wii’s massive success shows there is a market for motion controlled games as the console soon took the spotlight as the best selling console of this generation. In fact, the Wii sold so well that Sony noticed and tried to respond with the development of the motion sensing Sixaxis controller which—although it didn’t have the same functionality as a Wiimote—provided a new take on the old controller while offering PS3 owners a taste of this new control method. As it stands, Xbox 360 is the only console not implementing a new motion sensing medium as a form of control, but this could all be about to change. For a while now, rumors have been circulating regarding Microsoft researching motion-sensing controls for the 360. At first, rumors started to spread that MS had been developing a Wii-like controller that basically took similar appearance to the Scene It peripheral controllers; this was no surprise as many had expected MS to reply to Sony and Nintendo’s attempts.
What did come as a surprise though was the latest and most plausible rumor surrounding Microsoft’s attempts at motion control. According to this rumor, Microsoft is developing a 3D camera that allows players to control games with body and hand movements. This rumor has been backed up by Microsoft’s acquisition of a 3D Camera company, 3DV, earlier this year. Many expect the technology to be announced at E3. With all three major consoles set to utilize this technology, is it possible that motion control is the next-generation of gaming? Gaming with motion sensing controllers is a controversial topic. The success of the Wii shows that there is a want for this style of gaming, but it seems to be just for novelty games .The majority of games for the Wii are simple titles with very limited replay factor or scaled down ports of games on other consoles. However, there are few great original titles compared to that of Xbox and PS, and this seems to suit the Wii and its audience. For those of us who take games seriously, most of us can’t imagine playing a game without having a controller in our hands and complete control over our character. In light of this fact, the implementation of motion sensing on PS3 was very cleverly limited, for they didn’t want to exclude serious gamers by dumbing down gameplay to accommodate motion sensing controls, so they added the sensing as an add-on feature to the familiar controller.
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