While many within the game industry praise the motion control fad as some sort of brave and amazing new future, Tecmo Koei remains slightly more cynical in its excitement, doubting the appeal of Sony’s motion wand and Microsoft’s Project Natal.
“We are very excited about the future with Project Natal and Sony’s motion controllers,” stresses Tecmoei boss Kenji Matsubara. “At the same time, we have some concerns over the fact that we specialize in making action games, so we have to explore whether we can achieve real-time response from a controller-free system.
“We understand that, for casual gamers playing dance games or some sort of fishing game, this controller-free system can be popular. But for hardcore gamers who like actions games, we have to research and develop games that satisfy our core gamers.
“I expect that, from the beginning, both these types of controls will be more suited to casual games, and later go into more hardcore oriented experiences. That’s how, in my understanding, most companies’ strategies will apply.”
I’ve often said that MS and Sony’s “casual” push is playing to an audience that doesn’t exist for them. It’d be like Elton John becoming a freestyle rapper halfway through a concert. The people already there don’t get it, and the people who would don’t know it’s happening. I can’t help but feel that cute schemes like Natal are playing to an empty auditorium, when companies could instead focus on the loyal and strong audience that they already have. That’s about as diplomatic as I can be on the matter.
