E3 is underway and the big three have made their announcements. New hardware is coming, shockingly there are new games coming that look great too and executives really shouldn’t be allowed on stage if they can’t do public speaking.

There are two big areas for consoles in the next year: 3D and motion control. 3D is a good place to start, and there are two approaches being taken.

Sony are going all out with 3D on the PS3 with a solution that needs glasses and special TVs. It is my opinion that is the reason why it’s not going to take off any time soon. 3D TVs are expensive, the glasses are expensive and they’re also awkward and I believe 3D will remain a gimmick until such a time as they can do it without glasses and everybody has 3D TVs. At the very least there is no way that enough people will upgrade their still relatively brand new HD TVs in the next few years just to get 3D. There’s also the question of giving up on the 1080p gaming dream by going 3D. As you can see by the HDMI spec (press release here: http://www.hdmi.org/press/press_release.aspx?prid=120) game content is limited to 720p at the moment, which is a big shame. I will also admit to being slightly bugged by Sony’s insistence that 3D is something special and new, all it takes is rendering two frames with a slight offset, packaging them together in a single image and have the HDMI output in the correct format. It’s not magic, it’s a published standard. Also PCs have been failing to sell 3D for years…

Nintendo takes a different route to 3D, and it’s one that I think will work. The new 3DS takes the existing DS and adds glasses-free 3D using a special screen. This works, I believe, in the same way as those lenticular pictures that change when you move your head. Because of the way you hold a DS they can make sure a different image hits each eye and so as if by magic we have 3D. I think this will sell because it’s Nintendo, an upgraded DS and apparently the market for the DS is 6 for every person on the planet.

Moving on to motion control there were three very different experiences on offer. The Nintendo experience was one of failure and frustration, in fact if that had been the year they announced the Wii then it would be roundly mocked for just not working. Technical issues aside it was more of the same and games taking advantage of this. Why mess with what sells?

Microsoft demonstrated Kinect (the new name for Natal) to the dismay of hardcore gamers who can’t see themselves using it. This doesn’t matter as it’s not for us, it’s for families with kids. Most of the games were the expected shovel ware, with only a few titles standing out. They didn’t even mention it for Fable, which confirms to me that it’s not a core gameplay feature in that game. Which is good. Forza is getting the controls that they demonstrated with Burnout last year, which is good as well. I’ll still play with controllers thank you very much, but it makes Forza into a lot more non-game playing Dad friendly game. I predict it will sell a bunch more copies because of that. All those bemoaning the loss of the steering wheel controller market because of it are wrong as well, you’ll never beat that for experience. Lastly we have two types of games I always thought would be perfect for Kinect. Games such as EA Sports Active were always going to sell, the Tai Chi and Yoga possibilities of a skeleton tracking system rating you and telling you what you’re doing wrong are enough to sell them on their own, let alone the rest of it. The other is a game by Harmonix, Dance Central. Dancing games are popular on the Wii, Kinect gives a better experience so this will sell.

There’s also a rubbish looking star wars game. Which looks rubbish. Because it’s rubbish.

Yep, thought so. Kinect isn’t aimed at me. Time will tell if they’re releasing lots of Kinect games in 2 years time still, but I’ll not hold my breath.

Sony had Move, which is best described as an upgraded version of the Wii. Actually that’s not fair, it’s probably best to describe it as working the way that you expect the Wii to when you first see it. One to one tracking of movements will be very useful and there are some very nice games that you could make now.

I wasn’t as impressed by Sony describing Move and its games as I was by seeing how it works, but the market will rectify that if it takes off. Mostly the games were the same fluff and rubbish that Kinect has but Sony also made the worrying statement that lots of “core” games were getting support as well. We already knew that SOCOM was getting it, but you can add Killzone to that list as well.

Why am I worried about that? It’s giving those games an option of how to play that isn’t as good as what’s currently available. Sony have a bad track record with games using their latest gimmicks in inappropriate ways (the now forgotten motion controlling features of the sixaxis being the prime offender) and I don’t fully trust them not to do that. Now this sounds as if it contradicts what I said about Forza, but I don’t think the ease of access issue is the same for a shooter, you’re just removing the aiming part and leaving the moving the same. It’s telling that one of the accessories for Move announced was a holder for it shaped like a gun, so expect the option to return to lightgun gameplay in lots more PS3 games.

Grand Turismo announced Move support too, but I’m not 100% sure it’s actually Move and not just the camera. It adds something that the PC has had for a while: head tracking for looking around. On the PC it’s been through a product called TrackIR and removing the need for that extra hardware just with a camera is most welcome.

I came away from watching the Sony and Microsoft keynotes not wanting any of the games on either system. The interesting games in the Sony lineup are all games I’ll still play with the controller and the move specific games all looked more than a little rubbish. The Kinect games all looked a little rubbish as well, but they also added controls for the xbox itself through voice and gestures so they at least have that. That’s not worth whatever it’ll cost of course.

Costs are interesting. Sony are trying to sell a LOT of kit this year. New TV, glasses, Move controller ($50), camera, nunchuck ($30) and, oh yes, second move controller for the games that need two. Drop the 3D aspects and you still $150 off the bat to be able to play all games single player. Microsoft didn’t give a price for theirs, but $150 is rumoured and although it looks more expensive that’s a flat fee for every player. Microsoft are actually in a much better position, if that’s the real price, than Sony for families with more than one child as those $80s for the controller pair will soon add up. I also have this nagging feeling that comes from trying to convince my Dad to buy things when I was a kid. He never took well when buying something when I told him that we’d need lots of extras and that’s a lot of bits for kids to convince their Dad about with Move.

The big problem is lag. All three systems have what looks like massive amounts of lag between movement and action on screen which is going to be very distracting when trying to chain moves together in something. You’re not going to know a block worked in a sword fighting game before you need to start your next move for instance.

I probably sound a little down on both Microsoft and Sony here, but that’s just because the majority of the content for these new controllers just isn’t for me. I don’t know if they’ll sell in the long term, but given Microsoft and Sony’s abysmal track record for supporting things like their cameras in the past I don’t hold much hope for the long term survival of these. Both companies are looking to pull in new users with them, whether they are existing Wii owners, PS2 owners who still haven’t upgraded, or people who still haven’t got a console at all. I don’t know if this will work, but I hope we get some interesting things for them. Both Sony and Microsoft have potential here but I worry about them being able to capitalise on it. Move would actually make that killer lightsaber game that we’ve all wanted since the announcement of the Wii for instance.

When it comes down to it both systems are camera heavy, and that’s what gives them their advantages in accuracy over the Wii. The advantage the Wii has is greater though since it’s the dominant console, the one everybody knows as the motion control one, and the one that MS and Sony are being seen to want to copy. That’s a pretty good position to start this new race in.