Sony's Move.Me Fails to Move Me

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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Sony's Move.Me Fails to Move Me



Sony wants to make the motion control technology behind Move even more accessible and "hackable" than Microsoft's Kinect.

When Kinect came out a few months after Sony's Move controllers, there was a flurry of activity to break down the technology to do all kinds of Microsoft announced [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105582-Kinect-Hack-Roundup-Robots-Mario-Kart-and-Boobs] that it would offer a full driver so that engineers could tinker with the Kinect freely, Sony countered with the Move.Me program announced at GDC 2011. John McCutchan, senior engineer at Sony Computer Entertainment of America, that Move.Me will be an application that runs through PlayStation Network and will hopefully foster the same kind of experimentation we've seen with Kinect.

"Move.Me is a server application runs on the PS3," McCutchan said. "It sends the complete state of the PlayStation Move and navigation controllers to the PC, giving you the exact same data that licensed developers typically have access to."

Why didn't Sony release a full set of drivers to allow people to tinker on their PC like Microsoft did with Kinect? Well, because not everyone uses Windows. "If we release drivers, we're limiting who potentially can use it," he said. "If we released a Windows driver, we'd be tying people to Windows. Lots of people use Mac these days, or non-traditional operating systems like Android and iOS; the amount of engineering resources required to develop drivers for all these different operating systems just wouldn't be feasible."

That doesn't mean Sony won't support developers directly with some open source example applications. "We have some libraries and sample applications written in C# and C which we're going to put up on Google code, licensed with no restrictions, and people can just take that and run with it. We'll also open a forum for the community to share sample code, contribute to other developers' work and help all of us make some cool apps."

While McCutchan is certainly hopeful that "something that I could never have possibly imagined" will result from Move.Me, I'm not sure that's going to happen. The reason that Kinect was played with by engineers was because it wasn't tied to a console. Plugging it into a computer via USB allowed all kinds of innovation that had nothing to do with the Xbox. By forcing people to run the PS3 to do something with Move.Me just doesn't seem to offer the same amount of freedom.

You can't put a PS3 on a robot.

Source: Next-Gen [http://www.next-gen.biz/news/gdc-2011-sony%E2%80%99s-moveme-in-detail]

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teh_Canape

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May 18, 2010
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see

people will find a way to use this to run pirate games on the PS3, then Sony will flip the flick and will remove the Move.me thing
 

Klumpfot

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Dec 30, 2009
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It'll be interesting to see what people come up with. I am probably never getting one myself, unless someone does something a whole lot different from what is out right now.

Also, in the interest of furthering self-improvement, there are a few typos in your article.
 

FogHornG36

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Jan 29, 2011
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Sony, people who use a mac will find no interest in this sort of thing at all, and people on any linux based system have a phd in making or converting drivers to work for their operating system,

also, what use could anyone have to use a move controller on a smart phone?!
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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So, Sony wants the succes that Kinect unintentionally had. Well, part of the appeal Kinect have with hackers and engineers is that you don't need to actually buy the whole console to tinker with Kinect and many, if not all of the hackers and engineers that made something, they were mostly using Linux.

I can't see this go well in the coming weeks, tying everyone to your console while having to stay conected all the time is just worse than tying them to just Windows. Even better, removing it will come with a whole new "Other OS" drama.
 

dragontiers

The Temporally Displaced
Feb 26, 2009
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Greg Tito said:
Why didn't Sony release a full set of drivers to allow peoplw to tinker on their PC like Microsoft did with Kinect? Well, because not everyone uses Windows. "If we release drivers, we're limiting who potentially can use it," he said. "If we released a Windows driver, we'd be tying people to Windows. Lots of people use Mac these days, or non-traditional operating systems like Android and iOS; the amount of engineering resources required to develop drivers for all these different operating systems just wouldn't be feasible."
Wait, so let me understand this. By not releasing this for windows, they are some how making it more available to people? Isn't it actually limiting more people from using it by not making it available to PC? I mean, the Mac/Android/OtherOS people don't have access to it either way (other than through the PS3), so it's not like it would be physically depriving them from it in order to add it to Windows. I think they either a) don't want to show support to a competing company (Microsoft) or b) just wanted an excuse not to release it in an environment they have less control over (computers).
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Are we even talking about the same Sony here?

I thought the Sony we all knew and bought our Playstations from were dead set against game piracy. And here they are announcing that theyre releasing the Moves source code.

I expect a flipback within a month post release.
 

Zom-B

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Feb 8, 2011
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This does seem pointless. I mean, the Kinect is a basically a pretty interesting imaging device, whereas the move, especially the actually controller is just a tracking device, no? If there's any sort of sameness between the two systems, I'd think it would be with the PS camera, and that the controllers wouldn't have any real innovative or creative use outside gaming, unless it was something like that one dude did with the Wii controller where he used it as a tracking device for a mock 3D display.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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Eh. What's the point?

Both the kinect and Wii remotes can be connected directly to a PC.
You don't need a console in the middle

In theory, the Move is bluetooth, and the camera is USB, so why require a PS3?

This won't encourage hacks... It's too convoluted. (and expensive. I can get a kinect, wiimote, or move controller by themselves. The Kinect being the most expensive. - But this 'hack' would require getting a PS3 as well...)
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Mar 21, 2010
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Between There and There.
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The Wide, Brown One.
Zom-B said:
I mean, the Kinect is a basically a pretty interesting imaging device, whereas the move, especially the actually controller is just a tracking device, no?
Certainly what's got many robotics people interested in the Kinect is that it can be used as a cheap 3D/motion sensor package.
 

Muco5681

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Apr 2, 2010
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i cant help but to be a bit cynical here...sony Sue's a guy for breaking down the PS3 so you can install Linux on it a feature sony said on the box right form the start they was gonna have and then take away then they decide to have what i would call semi open source drivers for a controller that is failing (in my part of the world that is) i wonder how long there will go before Sony don't like what dev: A does with the controller and shuts him down

Sony make up your mind do you wanna support open source or not?
 

Zom-B

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Feb 8, 2011
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RhombusHatesYou said:
Zom-B said:
I mean, the Kinect is a basically a pretty interesting imaging device, whereas the move, especially the actually controller is just a tracking device, no?
Certainly what's got many robotics people interested in the Kinect is that it can be used as a cheap 3D/motion sensor package.
exactly what I was getting at. From what I've gleaned off the 'tubes, I don't think the Sony camera has anywhere near the capabilities as the Kinect, and without the controllers it's essentially a pretty good webcam. Am I wrong?