By Evan Ackerman

One of the biggest announcements at this year’s Game Developers Conference here in San Francisco is the Move, Sony’s new motion control system for the PlayStation. It’s generally similar to the Nintendo Wii, in that you hold a thingy, and something attached to the game console watches that thingy (in this case, it’s the PS Eye camera), and can tell where the thingy is being moved and translate that motion into in-game actions. Here’s the thingy in question:

More, including hands-on impressions and video, after the jump.

There’s a trigger on the reverse, at the top near the glowy ball, which changes color to differentiate one remote from another. Depending on the game, you can use one remote or two at the same time. It’s very light, lighter than a Wiimote, which makes me think it must have a rechargeable battery inside. I got a chance to test the Move out for a while last night, and it’s pretty impressive. It’s less forgiving than a Wii as far as where you can stand, but it’s much more precise and gives you a huge range of motion. You can rotate the controller vertically (twist it) or horizontally (make it do flips) and the system has no trouble tracking what it’s doing. This means that for fighting games, you can pull all kinds of moves just like you (hypothetically) would in real life: for example, you can spin around, and the tracking handles it perfectly. Or, for games like table tennis, you can actually put spin on your shots buy angling your wrist just like you would in real life. It’s a lot of work for a video game, and a lot of fun.

While the technology is great, in my opinion, the actual gaming software isn’t quite at the same level. What I was hoping for was a system that would take my motions and integrate them into the game directly. What happens currently (and it’s worth noting that all the demos were pre-alphas) is that the system reads the motions you make, and uses those motions to trigger preprogrammed actions. The Move is supposed to be very easy to program into games, though, so hopefully we’ll be seeing some innovative titles in the near future.

As far as pricing goes, a bundle with the PS Eye camera and one Move controller (and a game) should go for under $100, which usually means $99.99, but it could be less. You’ll also be able to get the Move controller by itself, and as part of a PS3 bundle. Look for launch late this year, in time for the holidays.

By Evan Ackerman

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are fun games, but after you master them, you’re left with little more than a staggeringly useless talent for pushing little plastic buttons. Game developer Seven45 Studios is aiming to change all that by partnering up with instrument manufacturer First Act to create a music game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that uses a real, playable six string guitar as a controller. Plug it into a console, and it’s a control. Plug it into an amp, and it’s a guitar.

The game is called Power Gig: Rise of the SixString. I got a brief demo at GDC yesterday, and while they wouldn’t discuss the game itself in a ton of detail, we did get a good look at the hardware. The big draw, of course, is that it’s a real guitar that you get to play with. The only difference between the controller and a normal guitar are the additional buttons on the body (to duplicate the full functionality of a game controller) and a special string dampener that pops up to keep the strings from vibrating too much when you’re playing the game, since it would confuse the sensors. Otherwise, all of the clever stuff is internal, and the guitar can sense both string movement and finger position.

Seven45 stresses that this is not an education game: it’s not designed to teach you how to play the guitar. That said, as you get comfortable with the game, you do slowly learn the fundamentals of playing the instrument, and as you crank up the difficulty, the game will demand more real world skill from you. And it’s not just about playing the guitar, either: the game is somehow adventure based, and part of the storyline includes teaching you how to tune yourself and change your own guitar strings (spare strings will be included).

There are a lot of things still to be finalized, including song content, but as far as pricing and availability goes, look for Power Gig sometime this fall at a price that will be “competitive with other game band packages.” If the gameplay stands up to similar titles as well, the choice is going to be an easy one: why get a game that includes a fake guitar and teaches you to push plastic buttons, when you could get a game that includes a real guitar and teaches you how to play it, instead.

[ Power Gig ]

Today the Sony PS2 turns seven years old. Since the PS2 was introduced on October 26, 2000, Sony has sold 120 million PS2 consoles. That is only a drop in the bucket when compared to the amount of PS2 software Sony has moved at a whopping 1 billion pieces. The PS2 continues to be a popular choice for console gaming even with newer systems like the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 on the market.

The PS2 also helped establish the DVD format with its ability to play DVD movies as well as video games. Sony is trying this same trick with the PS3’s Blu-ray player with less success. Sony says it originally planned the PS2 to have a 10-year lifespan and with the way the console continues to sell, Sony says the PS2 may exceed its life expectancy. The PS2 currently has a library of almost 1500 games and that number is expected to grow with 160 titles coming for the PS2 between now and March 2008.

VIA [ Sony ]