Who should you back?
With both Microsoft and Sony pulling out all the stops this holiday season to catch a corner of that elusive casual market, it’s almost certainly going to be an expensive Christmas. But which motion controller - if you have the fortune of choice - should you go for? With the Xbox 360’s Kinect providing full, three dimensional body motion where you are the controller (not to mention voice and facial recognition to boot) and the Playstation Move supplying 1:1 accuracy, verbal command and bags of Wii-like goodness, it’s certainly going to be a difficult decision. Here’s a checklist of all we know so far to make that verdict a little easier come launch day.
As far as software goes, this is actually a bit of a one-sided race; while the Xbox 360’s contender can boast some fascinating launch titles in the form of Kinectimals - a Tamagotchi style interactive pet - Your Shape: Evolved, Joyride (Microsoft’s Avatar-heavy vision of Mario Kart), Fable 3 and Dance Central, there simply isn’t enough on offer - or a sufficient variety of games, either - to engender a great deal of confidence in the project, whereas Playstation’s equivalent can in fact match all of the required and expected casual branding above as well as some pretty sweet hardcore products (such as Dead Space Extraction, Resident Evil 5, Socom 4, Heavy Rain and LittleBig Planet 2) right off the bat. With most of Microsoft’s biggest hitters - including Forza 4, Child of Eden and Star Wars Kinect - landing in stores next year and the handful of games already on offer presenting a debatable level of longevity and quality, the clear winner of this round would be have to be Move.
HARDWARE
While the Playstation Move’s release line-up can certainly make for interesting reading, Kinect’s hardware takes proceedings to a whole new level. With verbal, gesture based and facial recognition, full 3D tracking, smart programming that can even follow individual finger movements and ‘feature extraction’ of 20 joints per player - of which six can be recognised at any one time - Microsoft’s latest is far from the Eyetoy rip-off it’s often painted as. The fact that you can also use it in conjunction with the standard Xbox 360 controller means that you can enjoy the best of both worlds too, and the very nature of the product will give no imperative to shell out extra cash for additional handsets and needless plastic before you can even think of accessing multiplayer, essentially boiling things down to a lot more fun with your mates for a whole lot less money.
What’s more, doesn’t the formulaic, tried and tested nature of the Move brand itself rather limit the chances for true innovation and originality as previously advertised? I mean, how can you foster real creativity and ingenuity from a product so intrinsically limited to the actions of a singular, remote-based controller when - arguably - it’s all been done before? The Move may admittedly be more comfortable in the hands of a seasoned gamer - providing a solid point of reference and obvious potential for the likes of shooters due to the inclusion of a navigation stick - but it can still feel wholly unnecessary, derivative, clichéd and trite at times, handing Kinect an easy win for this round.
PRICE
Unfortunately, here’s where things start to get a little smidgeon of complicated; as of yet, the official price for both Move and Kinect have still to be confirmed. Estimates for Playstation’s remote go from about £25-£35, of course (though bear in mind that you’ll also need to buy an Eyetoy for it all to work and extra handsets for any other players), while critics have suggested a £15-£20 price-point for the additional navigation controller as well (including the directional stick that can be bypassed by using the standard Dualshock 3 in one hand). Kinect approximations, meanwhile, range from around £70 to as much as £129.99, although Microsoft have hinted that it’s likely to be somewhere in the lower region after commenting that they wanted the motion controller’s tag to be affordable, but explainable.
While it could be argued that Kinect is the better deal with a one-off payment and little need for extra peripherals at a later date, Move might even match or undercut Microsoft’s I.P yet so no clear victor can really be judged at this point.
The Bottom Line
At the end of it all, you’re left with two very simple and clear options laid out before you. First up, Move; if you want reliable, punctual software and durable - if dull - hardware, then pick Playstation. If you want to plump for the potential of real innovation, great social gaming and the promise of a lot more that may yet come down the line, however, then go for Kinect. Are you a gambler?
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