You've heard the arguments about whether or not PlayStation Move ripped off the Wii; you might even have started one in a moment of boredom. The technology used in Move actually has its roots in the PlayStation 2's EyeToy camera, as a series of technical demos from 2000 onwards show.
In the video below from a conference held in 2004 or 2005, Dr Richard Marks, Sony's R&D Manager of Special Projects, shows off how the prototype PlayStation Wand could be used in conjunction with the EyeToy camera and software to offer familiar Move features, including 3D motion tracking and a huge coloured ball on top of the controller. Sony filed patents for the controller in 2004, some time before the Wii – then known as Revolution – was unveiled.
How the world of gaming could have been so different had Sony released this technology for the PlayStation 2 instead of PlayStation 3.
Comments 17
Wow, that is pretty amazing! I guess it goes to show that although Nintendo got to market first, other companies were thinking along the same lines. I always thought that the Eyetoy on PS2 never really for the recognition it deserved, it reminds me a lot of the early Wii titles.
And it offered controller-less gaming years before Kinect!
Thats really neat. No one can really say it's a rip-off now!
It's also cool that they had the remote design for this long.
Wow next we'll be hearing that the PSP was originally gonna be in THREE DEE!
What that-there Dazza person said.
We'll be bringing a whole series of these tech demos as it does some really amazing stuff!
I guess that there is lots of innovation happening in each one of the big 3's product development workshops, which we do not hear about. I like the idea of Sony's li'l Elves beavering away at a new idea right now, who knows we may not see them for another six years.
It looks like Nintendo is not the only innovator of new motion sensor control inputs. Who'd have thunk it?
@James.... yes, please do. There have been some amazing tech demos of what the Move does now. Its really amazing!
What that V8 Ninja said.
This is fascinating.
I'll never understand why people think the Playstation Move "ripped off" the Nintendo Wii... it's clear they are very different technologies with very different capabilities.
It's not like anyone goes to a Metallica concert and goes "man, they totally ripped off Beethoven" because they both make music, ffs.
Wow this opened my eyes. Regardless of technical differences, I wasn't aware they delved into the concept earlier.
I remember reading an article back in the early 2000s about them doing research on displaying sensory information directly to the brain. PS4, anyone?
@Swerd: Not until 4 years after its release.
The biggest thing for me against Sony isn't "ripping off the Wii", or the fact that they had this technology before the Wii came out (though I do think it's great Nintendo was able to come out with the Wii remote on release day without apparently ever having to do any R&D beforehand as this article implies) but just the sheer attitude from Sony about how the Wii was a fad and motion controls were stupid. Sony did the same thing when they dropped vibration in the Sixaxis and talked about how that was old technology, but then low and behold the Dualshock 3. In my view Sony IS copying the "gameplay" of the Wii by pushing the Move peripheral after years of bad mouthing the Wii. Also, the technology isn't the same, Wiimote is mostly motion with some pointing and Move seems to be mostly camera with some motion. Different technology. Sony didn't "copy" the Wiimote at all, everybody knows they had the Eyetoy many years ago and this is just a continuation of it, heck they even released EyePet for just the camera last year worldwide but NOW Move is required, so even within 1 GAMES lifetime the technology has advanced from Eye to Move. But the Move gameplay does copy the Wii, it's late to the party, and Sony execs owe an apology to Nintendo execs for all the "Fad" badmouthing..
"Don't change the lights!"
sony should have released this earlier
there are lots of moments of parallel evolution as new technologies are made available- for instance, nintendo considered a controller free camera system before settling on the remote. by the same logic of 'sony's remote came first', you could say nintendo had the idea for kinect before microsoft.
the thing is that nintendo didn't develop that camera, much like sony sitting on their remote. the same technologies are often shown to every company and it's up to each of them to decide which works best. sony obviously didn't think much of their motion system at the time, and their adamance that the wii's motion controls would fail evidence that. nintendo had the vision to see it through and sony is playing catch up now.
point being that i'm a rabid fanboy who's still going to consider move a rip off in some way and there's nothing you can do to stop me. bwahahaha.
i am so shocked. positively.
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