Shuhei Yoshida has faced a few challenges since taking up his role as head of Sony’s internal game production, but Move looks to be his most engaging one to date. We caught up with him following the hardware’s proper debut at GDC.
How long had Sony been preparing for the presentation that was given during GDC?
You know, to be honest, we were hoping we could have it at the last TGS, but we felt that it needed a little bit more polish to finalise it to the level we wanted. So we passed on TGS except for some behind-closed-doors demos. So, to answer your question, it’s since E3 last year.
When you say polish, do you mean in terms of games, or the hardware itself?
The base technology. The games were to show that the technology works for many types of games, and many different teams were testing the hardware for different purposes and giving feedback to the hardware team in Japan. There were long lists of issues on the early hardware.
What was the inspiration for the controller?
The sphere was the key. This has to be seen to be perfectly round from every angle, so we wanted to design the hardware to accommodate that biggest symbol of the controller. Also, it had to have a shape that fits in the hand and not be easily thrown, so we gave it this concave design. At the same time, we added a button – we’re calling it the ‘Action’ button now, but the names aren’t finalised. Because you are moving your arms and we wanted to grow the audience of PS3 we wanted to have one big button, and still keep the PlayStation symbol buttons for games like SOCOM 4.
What was the biggest challenge the Move project has faced to bring it to this stage?
We had a very clear idea of the level of precision, reliability and responsiveness it should have, so it would have the same properties as using a DualShock. We really wanted this to be the case for all motion games – we didn’t want to sacrifice or compromise any responsiveness, because that’s the key for game development. That was one challenge. The other was how precise and stable it was. We want to make you feel like you’re inside the game and holding something that’s in the game, not a controller. In order for you to believe in that, the technology has to work precisely, so that’s been a challenge for both the hardware and software teams.
With which iterations of the technology were the games that were presented during GDC developed?
The software teams have been working with the technology since the beginning of last year. We’ve tried many different technologies, but it was at the beginning of last year that we decided to go with this optical technology. We’ve put many years of R&D into it, from EyeToy to PlayStation Eye, along with the sensors in the controllers, which are more advanced than what we have in Sixaxis.
What do you think are Move’s benefits over competing motion-control systems?
Well, we don’t know about Natal yet, so all we can say from watching in a general sense how it plays is that we’ve been familiar with the controller-less system since the days of the EyeToy. That’s very accessible, so a two-year-old to an 80-year-old lady can play games. But we also know the limitations of making games without a controller. So I’m very curious as to how Microsoft will solve that issue. Compared to Wii and Wii MotionPlus, the biggest advantage is precision, not only movement but 3D spatial recognition and orientation. We can incorporate very subtle movement into games. We’ve demonstrated Sports Champions’ table tennis – it’s a very simple game, but we made it so that it’s very deep, so that you can put those subtle moves in, or reach into the table or step back. That’s not possible with the Wii system.
LittleBigPlanet will be retrofitted to support Move – will other titles get the same fix?
We showed EyePet and SOCOM 4, which was pretty complete but we wanted to try to incorporate Move. It was not very difficult to do that to already complete technology. It takes only a very small fraction of hardware resourcesso Zipper could do that without compromising framerate or graphics, or AI or physics. So it’s the full SOCOM experience. That’s really great news for us. As more publishers try it, I’m sure we’ll be surprised how many games will support Move.
For most of its life, the Nintendo Wii Remote has been sheathed in rubber, its native form factor obscured over fears of death and destruction. Sony's Move controller, on the other hand, will breathe the free air.
Raising the prospect of smashed TVs with Sony Computer Entertainment's studio boss, Shuhei Yoshida replied "What's good about the sphere is that it's very, very robust. It's much more robust in terms of protection for the controller and people around it because it's soft. So we don't need a sleeve."
Famous last words, Shuhei. The Move is out later this year in the US, and if Americans are known for one thing, it's lawsuits.
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Watch someone is gonna sue Sony after Move comes out