Most of my followers know that with the release of Microsoft’s Kinect for the 360 that all current consoles now have some form of motion gaming. This of course would not be possible without the groundbreaking of Nintendo’s Wii. IN the beginning the Wii was looked at as a novelty, however, with time it has become clear that Nintendo (as it always has) hit a fairly untapped market gold mine. The number of consumers that the Wii brought into the gaming market made the others stand and take notice. The continued sale of Wii’s and the release of Sony’s Playstation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect is evidence enough. Now to get to the meat of this post which is the comparison of these three new releases:
Microsoft Kinect:
Microsoft’s Kinect system fixes some of the problems of the Nintendo Wii’s controller issues. Kinect uses a three cameras to determine your were abouts three-dimensionally. One of which is a color camera for image and two monochrome for positioning. However, this camera system frees the user of any controller. This is a huge plus over the original Wii controller that had huge accuracy and movement recognition problems. The major drawback to Kinect is that you need a large space in order to be able to use it. Microsoft recommends about 6-8 feet between the user and the sensors. The Kinect itself (since it’s all you need besides a 360) costs only $150 which is quite a reasonable price. At the moment they’re is a small library of motion games for the 360, only about 17, which could make me say that you might want to wait before you buy it.
PlayStation Move:
The PlayStation’s Move system is a combination of the Kinect and the Wii’s motion controller (as you can see the right; the one in the right hand is the sensor and the left one is the navigation controller). It requires PlayStation Eye (a camera system like the Kinect, but is only one camera) and the Move Motion controller. It uses both together in order to determine both your vicinity in space and your movement (both hand movement and direction of movement, such as pointing the controller to the left or right). This creates a highly accurate system, unlike the original Wii remote that relied only on the sensors. The combination of camera to relay exact position of the sensor in correlation with space allows for this high degree of accuracy. This is the cheapest of the three new devices coming in at a cost of $99 for the bundle (PlayStation Eye, Move Motion controller, and Sports Champions. Individually, it costs roughly $90 ($40 for the Eye and $50 for Move Motion controller). The optional navigation controller is another $30. The major drawback is like the Wii multiplayer requires multiple Move Motion controllers for each player, so expect to buy more than one controller (especially since some games require two controllers or wands per player). Just the like the Kinect a major drawback is the number of games available which currently is very low. Still making me say that if your dying for it buy it, but if not wait it out till there are more games.
Wii:
As stated above, the Wii works by the detection of the sensor (and accelerometer) inside the remote by the Wii system itself. The detection is very inaccurate which causes for a large amount of headaches while playing. Nintendo tried correcting this with the Motion Plus addon, but it still remains to as accurate as Sony’s Move (thanks to Sony’s HD camera). The pros, however, for the Wii far outweigh the cons. The remotes (and console itself) are fairly inexpensive. A remote is roughly $20 each (an extra $20 for the add-on Motion Plus or a remote with Motion Plus already is $40). The gaming library (which is exclusively motion oriented) is vast and expansive.
With all that being said, the choice is yours. The Wii despite its short-comings is a load of fun to play, and if Move and Kinect expand their library the same could be said for them.
