The PlayStation Move Versus the Wii

After a lot of waiting, I finally got to try out Sony's foray into the motion-gaming world: The PlayStation Move. Having owned a Wii for the last few years, I have a pretty decent idea of what makes for a good motion-gaming experience, so here are my impressions of the device.

First of all, it's nice not having a cord connecting the Move remote and the nunchuck. Sure, you can buy wireless nunchucks for the Wii, but these are not the standard setup that you get when you buy the system. The wireless nature of the Move controllers is great for games where spreading your arms far apart is required.

Next, the responsiveness is better than the original Wii remote. The Wii has since offered an add-on device that connects to the bottom of a remote (known as Motion Plus). The Move controller is as adequate as Motion Plus and the remote feels similar. The nunchuck does not have the same feel as the Wii nunchuck, but is still comfortable.

The Move also has a wrist strap to keep you from inadvertently destroying the remote and other items in your room if the controller should accidentally slip out of your hand. It works fine and is by no means constricting. It actually feels a little more substantial than the Wii controller strap, which is pretty darn thin.

The Move uses a camera that looks at the orb on top of the remote to determine the movement to execute. This seems to work well with one caveat: The camera seems to become confused if there are other bright light sources. While the camera seemed to have no problem in a well-lit room, it struggled a bit in a poorly-lit room with another light source.

While the initial crop of games for the Move is generally unimpressive, the hardware itself seems to be pretty solid. For a price of $99, which includes the camera, a remote, and the game Sports Champions, it doesn't seem to be too terribly expensive. If it were up to me, though, I would have preferred to have the nunchuck included in the bundle instead of the game.

I would give the hardware itself a 8 out of 10, but I would wait to buy it until some better games come out for it. What I think will be really interesting is if and when the motion controls are integrated into some serious 3-D games. For now, though, I'd wait on picking it up.