Get It: Sony Playstation Move
Brian Klutch
Sony PlayStation Move: $100; PS3 Console: From $300; sony.com
How do you make video-games more lifelike? Get the players off the couch. Nintendo's Wii got families on their feet with a controller that senses swings and other motions. In November, Xbox 360 fans will rise for Microsoft's Kinect. And now Sony wants serious gamers to stand. Its Move is designed for even those who prefer precision shooter games.
The system, an add-on to PlayStation 3, combines many measurements. Its wand packs a Wii-like speed- and tilt-sensing accelerometer, a gyroscope to track rotation (such as a sword's twist), and a digital compass. A video camera detects the wand's exact position in space: It watches the glowing ball as it moves sideways or up and down, and it judges depth from the ball's apparent size. All that data lets SOCOM 4 warriors use the wand to point at targets as if they were beaming a laser from their hand.
Cheat Sheet
Three major videogame systems all have the same goal: to quickly and accurately follow your movement in three-dimensional space. But they achieve it in very different ways.