Move is precise enough – Sony

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 27 November, 2010

Most games "not taxing it to full accuracy".

Sony is able to improve the accuracy of motion-sensing controller Move through firmware updates to the PlayStation 3 – but it may decide not to.

"We can certainly update it through firmware," Anton Mikhailov, a software engineer at Sony Computer Entertainment America's research and development department and one of Move's chief creators, told Eurogamer in a new interview published today.

"The real question is, do we want to? So far we haven't had any real requests from studios to improve the accuracy. There are a couple of issues here and there we can fix, but the majority the games are not even taxing it to its full accuracy."

Mikhailov said Sony has found that gamers tend to have trouble performing actions precisely, rather than the Move not being precise enough to detect them – because games can be ultra realistic.

He highlighted the expert difficulty on Sports Champions' table tennis game, which removes all assists.

"At that point you're thinking, well, how much more precise does it need to be? We need to decide. There's room for some more precision. It's going to be up to us."

Ellie reviewed Sports Champions for Eurogamer, awarding it a solid 7/10. On table tennis she wrote: "The virtual bat mimics your movements perfectly so you can perform different types of hit, and misses never feel unfair. It's well worth playing through the tutorials to learn just how much depth there is to the game."

Looking to the future, Mikhailov expressed excitement at dual-handed interaction, which enables 3D multi-touch gameplay.

But gamers will notice improvements to one-to-one control over virtual characters before anything else.

"The character control and animations are going to improve vastly because most games of this era were set up to do DualShock control. Everything was baked and scripted. With the Move you have this one-to-one control over the character – you've seen that in The Fight and Sports Champions.

"There are noticeably some glitches and everyone's aware of that. It's quite good, in my opinion, for the time we had, but we can improve on that. That will be much better in the future.

"People are going to experiment with the basics. Different camera angles and different setups of the HUD, things like that, just to make the experience feel closer and more connected. There's a bunch of work we can do there."

Half the people who want to buy Move, which went on sale in September, are parents, according to Sony. Apparently 60 per cent of the people who want Move already own Nintendo's console - they want to upgrade their motion-sensing experience apparently.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • riceNpea #1 2 years ago

    sometimes EG is like the Dave channel. all this was in the interview. we're not goldfish you know

  • penhalion #2 2 years ago

    Seems about as accurate as the wiimote so far. I played time crisis with the gun attachment and had to keep compensating for in-accurate positioning all the time. Doesn't seem like the camera can tell how far you are from the screen at all.

    I have the kinect too and that seems to manage very well with distance and orientation (though it has it's own issue with lag).

  • Ryze #3 2 years ago

    It's simply missing a form of directional control for moving the camera in Tumble and other games. That's the only thing I see it lacking.

    The Move button should have been a nub/nipple/slider/analogue.

    The NavCon could do with getting rumble, but it's non-essential.

  • dominalien #4 2 years ago

    I'm not certain Sony got the calibration routines well figured out with these early Move titles.

    Most games will tell me to point the controller at the camera, which results in shifted positioning. I found pointing it at the centre of the screen instead solved my accuracy problems.

  • super_monty #5 2 years ago

    I know nothing about the Move accuracy cos i don't have any decent games for it.
    Edited by super_monty at 27/11/10 @ 09:28

  • GamesConnoisseur #6 2 years ago

    The aiming at TV via camera is quite imperfect and certainly NEED improving via updates, but I dont think that they could easily do that whereas the accuracy on the movement, positionings and waggles of the Move is indeed spot on in my view.

    TWO different mechanics, and for me the seemly regularity of the need to calibrates my aiming with Move is an indication of a problem in this particular area.

  • NewbieZilla #7 2 years ago

    Kinect doesn't have any good games. Are there many good move compatible games? Oh, nevermind the PS3 doesn't have games.

  • jag10 #8 2 years ago

    There's plenty of good games that are move compatible here's a few:

    MAG
    Heavy Rain
    Sports Champions
    Tumble


  • NewbieZilla #9 2 years ago

    It's doing a lot better than Kinect in the motion sensing game, anyway. But only Heavy Rain of all that has me interested. Hopefully its done well in that, looking forward to eventually getting around to playing it. Too much stuff on my to play/to watch list to get to it any time soon though.

  • ThePissartist #10 2 years ago

    Is Sports Champions fun on the hardest difficulty? I play games because I'm rubbish at the real sport, not because I'm expected to be a pro before I start.

    I don't want to play a tennis game that's ultra accurate, I prefer to smash a ball and have in stay in court.

    Fun is most important. I'm fairly sure Move can do fun over accuracy.

  • NewbieZilla #11 2 years ago

    Biker_Bob
    "I have both and Kinect does a FAR better job in positioning where you are in the 3D space."

    I'm more interested in good games for it. That is the starting point. Only when this has been reached can we talk about precision. Currently, it doesn't make sense to me why anybody would buy kinect. A 360? Duh, great games. Kinect? It seems a "Well, hm, shur I have the money, might as well spend it." That seems to be the only thing I can think of. I tried to get people to reply with a reasoning behind buying kinect in another comments section, but no, I got no answers. Just mouse warriors.

  • Kilroy #12 2 years ago

    Precision is good. I think the Move is more accurate than the Wiimote is (Haven't seen the reason to buy Motion+ yet).
    However, I can't say if Kinect is better or worse than Move. That will be completely irrelevant, actually, as Microsoft has built a peripheral that I can't use, because I don't have enough space.
    Honestly, I'm still quite irked by that.

  • lennon #13 2 years ago

    "Currently, it doesn't make sense to me why anybody would buy kinect. "

    I bought mine as it looked fun. And it is. Exactly what gaming should be about. Happy now? (Guessing you wont be).

  • man.the.king #14 2 years ago

    @ThePissartist

    "I don't want to play a tennis game that's ultra accurate, I prefer to smash a ball and have in stay in court. "

    If you want Sports Champions to be more forgiving as far as accuracy goes, just play it on the Bronze levels (or Silver, if you are feeling adventurous). As far as I can tell, it is ramping up the difficulty by increasing accuracy in tracking and making the AI more aggressive.

  • IamTheElderScrolls #15 2 years ago

    No its not - its made by sony.

  • NewbieZilla #16 2 years ago

    "I bought mine as it looked fun. And it is. Exactly what gaming should be about. "

    Not for the games, anyway, so could you give a better answer? Make sense.

  • ThePissartist #17 2 years ago

    I'd rather Sony concentrated of fun over accuracy. I like some difficult games, but prefer fun physics over 'accurate' physics.

  • Kerome #18 2 years ago

    Exactly. Concentrating on precision is missing the point of motion gaming - it's not about precise control, it's about creating dynamic and fun experiences.

  • des #19 2 years ago

    Sony "move is the best"...wahhhhhh

  • Gregolution #20 2 years ago

    Motion controls are only about fun?! Since when? Ofc accuracy counts. The only reason you associate fun party games with motion control is because thats all less accurate motion hardware can offer. Sony have it spot on, they can do silly simple games but that can also scale up a huge learning curve because it's accurate enough to do so. Sports Champions is a
    perfect example.

  • Jay-ITFC #21 2 years ago

    Hardly gonna say it's pap are they.

  • coolbeans #22 2 years ago

    He's right. If you have a Move controller but have not played Tumble yet you haven't seen what it can do.

  • lennon #23 2 years ago

    "Make sense"

    No you dont that is for sure. No wonder no one can answer your questions....

  • NewbieZilla #24 2 years ago

    "No you dont that is for sure."

    Step 1: read.
    Step 2: Understand.

    You failed step 2.

  • lennon #25 2 years ago

    Blimey you get more confusing the more you prattle on. Tell you what pretend I gave you the answer you were looking for that way you can go away and pat yourself on the back.

  • NewbieZilla #26 2 years ago

    Seriously, though, you play games that came out for kinect, and you are having fun with them? Wow.

  • Goodfella #27 2 years ago

    @ThePissartist

    They're as easy or as fun as you want them to be, as mentioned on the hardest setting Sports Champions, in particular the table tennis game is pretty brutal and requires of lot of skill, but on the easier settings it almost plays itself while remaining fun, if that's what you want.

  • djed #28 2 years ago

    Holy shit, move and kinect has brought in the casual trolls. They are easily identifiable by the crudeness of their trolling, h4rdc0r3z tRoll like this:

  • NewbieZilla #29 2 years ago

    "But for the whole family it IS a worthwhile investment and one that gives you lots of fun."

    Ah, ok. That is a whole different kettle of fish. What I don't understand is hardcore gamers going off, pre ordering it, buying it on the premise of "well, there'll be good games eventually." Which is as good as the person saying they are a moron.

    I have similar confusion about people who buy a console, and their line is "Oh, I got it for (game that will be out in 3 years time)." I suppose people that level of stupid are what make the profits for the companies.
    Edited by NewbieZilla at 27/11/10 @ 16:36

  • pac666 #30 2 years ago

    "Looking to the future, Mikhailov expressed excitement at dual-handed interaction, which enables 3D multi-touch gameplay."

    Oo, er, missus!. He's a bit of a perv then?

  • Dizzy #31 2 years ago

    Somebody should tell them it is not about precision.

  • jackdoe #32 2 years ago

    All those tech demos showed just how precise the controller can be. The problem is that not many developers are capitalizing on it.

  • napalm68 #33 2 years ago

    I found it pretty difficult and tiring honestly, with Heavy Rain and Resident Evil, giving me a sore shoulder. In Heavy Rain I had such trouble with towards/away motions like opening a door - I'd end up having to get off the couch to move the controller back more and more to get the required motion. It was so exagerated.

  • mcmonkeyplc #34 2 years ago

    Kinect probably does depth perception better because it uses an IR sensor whereas move uses a glowing dildo.

  • xentar #35 2 years ago

    There is no DOUBT move is realy precise. But the fun comment are spot on too. Kinect sports is imprecise but thanks to its presentation and character the track and field events are a blast

    edit: i hate automatic correction on my android.. sorry
    Edited by xentar at 28/11/10 @ 19:59

  • Kerome #36 2 years ago

    Well, when I said it was about fun more than precision what I meant was if I'm doing bowling I don't want to have to align my bowling precisely to the millimetre level. There are a lot of situations like that in movement control games, where because of the way you play the precision of the controller does not matter a lot. And you can easily create games that fail because they are too strict in terms of applying precision to the gameplay...

  • jag10 #37 2 years ago

    LMAO yeah MS left the accuracy out on purpose because it's not as fun. well play table tennis on sports champions and you'll see the accuracy improves the fun because you can actually do proper shots, and not just flap like a fucking seal.

  • db3 #38 2 years ago

    Movement precision is just fine, use as a pointer is where the problem is. I doubt that can be fixed in firmware, seems more like a design oversight.

  • knightmt #39 2 years ago

    Relatively it is amazing but absolutely it is a bit unpredictable. The shooting games are a good example I have found that it drifts a lot depending on the depth aswell as the position of the gun. If you can maintain the range of the gun from the screen it is a lot more consistent. But if you go to the edge of the screen and then back to the middle then there seems to be some change I am not sure if it is me or the camera? Also because of error correction I think it does not like it if you obscure the tip.

  • chrisjm #40 2 years ago

    sony are starting to sound desperate.

  • ouchio #41 2 years ago

    Flight Control HD and Tumble are so much fun but i need more games for it!
    Edited by ouchio at 28/11/10 @ 19:49

  • Macdory #42 2 years ago

    Seriously, there is no point in Move or Kinect yet - quality games that utilise them are not out yet. Only when there are games worth buying will I jump on the motion train ...

    I sold my Wii as I got bored of the games - I enjoyed the tech for novelty value, but it is the games that you can play with it that are important.

    The first one to produce a quality golf game gets my cash ... TW 2010 on the PS3 is apparently pretty poor with the bolted on Move support, and John Daily looks as ugly as the man himself.

  • slippysloppy #43 2 years ago

    "Looking to the future, Mikhailov expressed excitement at dual-handed interaction, which enables 3D multi-touch gameplay." Have one Move and the Nav controller, unless a killer app comes out I won't be buying another.

  • TonyHarrison #44 2 years ago

    It's probably wise that developers aren't taxing it to full accuracy. There are some games where the idea of 1:1 control would sound appealing, but the reality would be something different.

    The so far mythical lightsaber game for example, the idea of a 1:1 lightsaber game sounds great in theory. Then you realise that you'll be as good as that fat kid who filmed himself messing around with a broomstick or whatever it was...