SEGA "blown away" by Natal, PS3 wand

By Robert Purchese Published 1 July, 2009

"There's so many games and possibilities."

SEGA Europe's development boss Gary Dunn was "blown away" by Microsoft's and Sony's motion-sensing demonstrations at E3 and "immediately" wants to start working with the new technology.

"I was blown away by it, both systems offer us so many opportunities to do great things with videogames. I immediately now want to make another Virtua Tennis," Dunn told GamesIndustry.biz.

"There's so many games and possibilities. I want to go away and lock myself in a dark room with some of our cleverest chaps and see what we can do with it.

"We've got to look in different directions to almost throw history away and it requires a whole new way of thinking," he said. "We've got to ask what can we do with this, because completely different genres of games could open up."

Dunn believes there will be those who implement the motion-sensing controls into proven franchises, and those who invest time and money to innovate from scratch.

"Being the largest third-party publisher on Wii we obviously have good gestural experience so for us I can see an opportunity to get a land grab on some of our competitors by taking our head start in gestural gaming and evolving it," he said.

SEGA was one of the first companies to support Wii MotionPlus with Virtua Tennis 2009, which turned out well. The Sonic-maker has also bet big on Wii with mature exclusives like House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld.

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz for the full interview with Gary Dunn to find out how those games did and whether lacklustre sales will deflect SEGA from Wii development.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zomoniac #1 3 years ago

    I'd say good but, given your inability to produce a vaguely competent game using a standard controller, I'll believe it when I see it.

  • Dizzy #2 3 years ago

    And so it begins...

  • mcmonkeyplc #3 3 years ago

    Uh oh! Although to be fair Sega have made the best use of the waggle machine so this could be ok. I guess.

  • mashk #4 3 years ago

    Like Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones were?

  • Monkey_Puncher #5 3 years ago

    Sega are finally gonna give their fans the Sonic game they've been craving, only you'll have to jog on the spot to get him moving...

  • Korben #6 3 years ago

    "I want to go away and lock myself in a dark room with some of our cleverest chaps and see what we can do ..."

    Permission to say gay ;-)

  • Eraysor #7 3 years ago

    6 trillion shitty Sonic games incoming then.

  • TopKatt #8 3 years ago

    Well Sega have got a point, just look at the number of quality titles that have been produced for the Wii since launch.

    Oh, wait.........

  • Wastelander #9 3 years ago

    "Both systems offer us so many opportunities to do great things with videogames..."

    Excellent!

    "...I immediately now want to make another Virtua Tennis"

    /facepalm

  • Ignatius_Cheese #10 3 years ago

    Blown away by the prospectives of shovelware...? :o/

  • bluem4gic #11 3 years ago

    bullshit

  • michaelius #12 3 years ago

    So Master Chief Summer Olympics and Sackboy Winter Olympics confirmed? :D

  • booner #13 3 years ago

    "I want to go away and lock myself in a dark room with some of our cleverest chaps"

    Ooooo eerrr ;-)

  • m0thr4 #14 3 years ago

    Uh oh! Although to be fair Sega have made the best use of the waggle machine so this could be ok. I guess.

    Have you any examples? I'd say Namco lead the field in this area after playing the excellent "Family Ski & Snowboard".

  • chukcyQ #15 3 years ago

    How about a new Magic Wand version of c64's Seek'n'Destroy!?!?! http://ww w.lemon64.com/games/details.php...

  • schnide #16 3 years ago

    This is the same Sega that's handled Sonic so well since.. um..

  • mkreku #17 3 years ago

    Another reason to stay mainly a PC gamer: no waggle wands of any kind :p

  • Doctor_What #18 3 years ago

    House of the Dead on the Wii is utterly awesome though, so they do make some good games!

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #19 3 years ago

    Aye, Sega have done well with the Wii - HotD, MadWorld, Let's Tap, Mario & Sonic are all great fun (if not necessarily all directed at people who claim they are hardcore) and The Conduit sounds like it's nailed the controls if not the plot. So of any developer I'd expect them to do a good job with this.

  • coojam #20 3 years ago

    @ Korben...

    ""There's so many games and possibilities. I want to go away and lock myself in a dark room with some of our cleverest chaps and see what we can do with it."

    ...particularly when consider the shape of "it" - the PS3 wand

  • Sonic_D #21 3 years ago

    I too am a waggle cynic, but playing Wii Sports Resort with M+ shows that there is defintiely potential here. The Kendo (1:1 sword stuff) and Table Tennis games control so well that Ninty have to help the 3rd parties get their controls that good too. Main prob is laziness, i.e. I can't be arsed to stand up and play after work.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 14:05

  • Farzlepot #22 3 years ago

    *Sigh*

    If I'd wanted to dance around on the spot, flapping my arms about like a penguin who still hasn't realised he can't fly, I'd have bought a Wii in the first place. I can see some prospects for these new developments, but on the whole I'm really dreading it...

  • JahB #23 3 years ago

    "Both systems offer us so many opportunities to do great things with videogames..."

    shovelware ports from wii to 360/ps3. upscaled resolution, dev costs close to 0 and massive margins.

  • yagisencho #24 3 years ago

    A proper Samba de Amigo sequel up first, please! With the PS3, the wands are the maracas. With Natal, you can use your own maracas.

  • Wille_Ash #25 3 years ago

    "There's so many games and possibilities. I want to go away and lock myself in a dark room with some of our cleverest chaps and see what we can do with it."

    The clever chaps left SEGA a long time ago. Cool SEGA died with Okawa-san. RIP.

  • Kanjin #26 3 years ago

    lol, let's do a BRAND NEW game... yeah, er, how about a new tennis game? Works for us

    >_>

  • Bander #27 3 years ago

    "...I immediately now want to make another Virtua Tennis"

    /facepalm
    Exactly. This is the company that made the Activator in the early '90s, had motion sensing peripherals along with mics and a camera for the Dreamcast, and make arcade machines that vary from cabinets that spin people 360 degrees to placing plastic blocks against a giant screen so sprites can climb on them...

    ...and the first thing that comes to mind is yet another Virtua Tennis? Just release a waggle patch for the existing half-dozen 360/PS3 versions!

    Sega's 'cleverest chaps' are the arcade R&D people that always gave Sega its edge, right? Except it seems Yu Suzuki was locked in a dark room ages ago and Sega's forgotten where they left him.

  • Drakron #28 3 years ago

    No because the Wii became a fad and they are trying to tap into.

    That is why both Sony and MS are going into this, the issue comes from the Wii selling HARDWARE but not so much software with the bunk of software sales being 1st party games (Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is the 10th highest selling game at 3.4 million).

  • AusFreelancer #29 3 years ago

    C'mon EG....you can do better.

    How about "SEGA gets blown by PS3 wand, gets pre-Natal"....?
    ok sorry.

  • SEVQA #30 3 years ago

    SEGA "blown away" by Mega CD 1&2, 32X and Saturn! ;)

  • edhe #31 3 years ago

    Screw Sonic, i'm looking at condemned 3. Bludgeoning and shouting at people would fit in perfectly with that series.