Entertainment Electronics Blog

E3 attendees don’t always have all the fun. Before the booths in LA could even be fully taken down, Sony gave PlayStation Move its public debut this weekend at Japan’s World Hobby Fair, a bi-annual event that features the latest games, manga, and anime. We were on hand to check out public reaction as well as the two featured games, EyePet and Kung Fu Rider.

The World Hobby Fair is free to the public and the games on display usually cater to a younger demographic. Judging by the length of the lines at Sony’s booth, interest in the device isn’t particularly high. ModNation Racers attracted twice the attention of Sony’s motion controller. Meanwhile, Mario Galaxy 2, a game that’s been out in Japan for nearly a month, had the longest lines of the show. Those that did try Move walked away looking impressed, and the reason for the relative apathy towards the device remains unclear.

We stood in line for about an hour (one of the shorter lines at the show) in order to get our chance to play Kung Fu Rider. The game is played with a single Move controller. You control a bespectacled man in suspenders sliding down the road in an office chair. In his way stand everything from milk crates and road signs to yakuza and old ladies. The goal of the game is to avoid the organized criminals and roadblocks and reach the end of the course. You steer your character by moving the controller from side to side. Gently whipping the controller will speed him up. Pressing the T trigger on the back of the Move controller will make the character on screen duck back in the chair like he’s in a limbo competition. Throwing the controller up will make him jump, and pressing the Move button on the front of the device will unleash an attack on an unsuspecting gangster or strolling granny.

Kung Fu Rider is a simple game that doesn’t make use of the fidelity the Move controller is capable of. There was nothing in the demo we played that couldn’t or hasn’t been done on the Wii. The demo that Sony displayed at the World Hobby Fair played and looked more like a $15 PSN game, not a $39.99 retail product ready for release this September.

Scotland-based game developer Cohort Studios has a thing or two to say about the next wave of motion controllers. The studio is currently hard at work on The Shoot, an on-rails shooter designed for the PlayStation Move, and it’s pretty safe to say Cohort’s sold on the tech.

“The PlayStation Move is a great piece of hardware,” Cohort CEO Lol Scragg told Develop in a recent interview. “It has a fantastic feel to it and it’s incredibly accurate. We’ve had no issues with it, and the hardware and the libraries have come on well.”

But how does Sony’s device stack up against the competition? “Having used both controllers a lot, I’d say it was clear that the Move controller is so much more accurate [than the Wii remote],” Scragg said. “And it’s not just across the X and Y-axis either, the Z-axis is really accurate as well.”

The CEO went on to discuss the negative perception of motion control among hardcore gamers. “I understand that, if you read any of the forums, you’ll [see] people state they don’t need motion control, but that’s because they’ve likened motion control to the Wii,” he explained, adding, “Once Sony and Microsoft start releasing their own games for their motion controllers, I think the core will come round to it.”

Granted, Scragg’s opinion may be somewhat skewed by his company’s investment in development for the PlayStation Move. It’s still nice to hear developers getting excited about new technology.