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A Report on Sony Computer Entertainment
A Report on Sony Computer Entertainment
By Sarah Fletcher 1001685
This report shall explore a Sony Computer Entertainment
(SCE) product: the PlayStation Move.Me and the potential this technology has.
The PlayStation Move.me is a development kit that utilises the PlayStation
Move. The kit allows developers to create motion senor games and applications
by tracking the users’ movement through the PlayStation Eye Camera and the Move
Controllers. Along with discussing the potential of the Move.Me, the Author
will look further at what the PlayStation, the PlayStation Move and SCE
essentially are.
The History of Sony
and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.
Starting off as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (TTK) in the late 1940s,
the Sony Corporation was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The war had
recently ended, leaving Japans economy in a crippled state and these two men
were making their living by repairing radios. Wanting to develop their future
in designing and manufacturing, they worked on new ideas for electronic appliances.
Their first innovation was far from the radios and voltmeters they started out
with and was instead an appliance for home cooking: an automatic rice cooker.
It wasn’t a perfect product as it’s inconsistency to cook rice resulted in
limited success. However it was a beginning to the household electronics
company which continued, to this day, producing innovating electronics such as
the World’s first portable Televisions and the World’s first portable audio
player, the Sony Walkman.
In 1950 Ibuka and Morita’s ability to look beyond, lead them
to expanding TTK abroad to the US and eventually Europe. However, TTK needed to
change its name as it was already being used by another company and so in 1955,
a near 10 years after Ibuka and Morita formed TTK, the company was renamed:
Sony Corporation, a change which didn’t become official until 3 years later. It
took another 10 years for Sony Corporation to set up in the United Kingdom. In
London, 1968, Sony United Kingdom was founded, becoming the first major
Japanese Company to open a factory in the UK.
As a further part of the expanding Sony Corporation, SCEI
was established in 1993 as the division for the Sony Electronic Publishing subsidiary
which would cater to the video game industry with the launch of the PlayStation
following soon after. Led by Ken Kutaragi, Sony developed the PlayStation after
an unfavourable turn of events with Nintendo partnering with Phillips.
Initially, Nintendo had partnered with Sony to create an add-on for the next
gen console from Nintendo, the Super Nintendo. This add-on would allow reading
from CDs instead of cartridges and would be called the Super Disk. However,
Nintendo went behind Sony’s back and partnered with Phillips, a rival company to
Sony in producing home electronics. Initially, Sony wasn’t interested in
entering the gaming industry and very few had faith in Sony’s ability to
succeed, the President of Sony (Norio Oga) included. However, Nintendo’s
betrayal left Norio Oga infuriated and humiliated. The result was that Oga
appointed Ken Kutaragi (one of the few with the drive and vision to see Sony a
success in the games industry) the responsibility of developing the PlayStation
Project, using the Super Disk technology.
There was a time when the continuation of the project was at
jeopardy, due to the lack of belief in Sony as a gaming company. However, at
the meeting to decide the fate of Project PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi reminded
the board of how they found themselves in the situation; Nintendo’s humiliating
actions.
Since then, SCEI has
released a number of consoles under the PlayStation brand and earned its place
as a solid home gaming enterprise. The most recent release from PlayStation is
the PlayStation Vita. On release date, there were over 30 games released a long
with it. When the Nintendo 3DS was released, only 9 (8 in Japan) games were
released alongside it.
Competition and Rival
Consoles
Nintendo isn’t the only company SCEI was competing with in
the video game industry. Sega, a company already established in the video game
world had been developing the Sega Saturn, a console similar to the PlayStation.
Six weeks before the PlayStation was to be released, Sega rushed the release of
the Saturn in Japan and sold out all the original units. The hype from the
release of the Saturn put a bit of a blanket over the release of the
PlayStation as some of the original release units of the PlayStation remained
on the shelves.
Fortunately, Sony was able to raise their head above Sega
when it came to the Western release. Wanting to throw off the PlayStation’s
release in America as well, Sega falsified the release dates of the Saturn in
America. Sega announced that the Saturn would be released on “Saturnday”
(Saturday, September 2). Sony then announced that the PlayStation would see its
American release the following week.
Once again, Sega made a ploy to release the Saturn long
before the PlayStation. At the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), it was
announced that the previous stated launch date was a ruse. Instead of being
released in September, the Saturn was to be released immediately and available only
at a few select retailers. This would give Sega a 4 month advantage on sales against
the PlayStation. However, Sega soon realised that their plan backfired. Not
only was the PlayStation selling 100USD less than the Saturn, the Saturn was
releasing with very few games. Because of the surprise early launch, third-party
developers were not ready for the launch and so the majority of the games
released with the Saturn were what Sega were developing.
Because of the choice to limit the retailers for the Saturn,
there was little support for the sale of the console and some retailers even supported
Sega’s rivals more so because of Sega’s actions. By the time the 4 months was
over and Sony launched the PlayStation, the Saturn had only sold approximately
80,000 systems whereas within the one weekend of the launch, over 100,000 PlayStations
had sold.
With the successful release of the PlayStation and the
Nintendo 64, Sega was struggling to keep its name in the game. In an attempt to
improve their situation, Sega sought out the help of Microsoft to develop a new
generation of gaming consoles. The result was the Sega Dreamcast. Being able to
including online gaming, it was a first if its kind and led the way to the
massive console online gaming culture we see today. While initially the Sega
did well, especially in Japan, it still did not out match the PlayStation and
when Microsoft, having finally gaining some experience in video game hardware
development, released the successful Xbox, Sega knew it was time to call it
quits, realising that there wasn’t the space in the market four consoles as the
UK Christmas sales of the Dreamcast showed. However, they have remained in the
games industry as software developers, now aiding their former rivals.
Today Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are manufacturing consoles
and all three companies are making use of motion sensors in their most
currently consoles. First was PlayStation with the PlayStation 2 EyeToy: a
camera accessory which used gesture recognition to allow players to interact
with the games through motion. A few years later Nintendo launched the Nintendo
Wii with an infrared sensor that tracked the Wii controllers, removing the need
for an analogue stick or directional pad to navigate the screen. Sony then
released the PlayStation 3 with the Move Controllers and the PlayStation eye that
worked in the same way as the Wii (the camera capturing and tracking the light
at the tip of the Move controller). Finally, Xbox released the Xbox 360 along
with the Xbox Kinect; a camera sensor accessory which worked in a similar manner
to the original PlayStation Eye toy but with more advanced software and capabilities.
Move.Me
Sitting between the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox Kinect, the PlayStation
Move is an accessory kit for the PlayStation 3 which enhances and expands the
users gaming experience. It brings into people’s homes the feeling of being at
an Arcade with games such as the rail shooter: The Shoot, which plays similar
to games like Time Splitters and House of the Dead (but with a more casual
tone).
With games like this, players have more control of their
actions and their aim instead of dealing with an array of buttons and analogue
sticks.
Also, with already immersive games like Heavy Rain the user
gets to experience a little more involvement with the game beyond making a
choice and pressing a button. They get to perform small expressions and actions
which add another challenge to the gameplay.
The move works by a camera (which is situated in front of
the TV facing the user) tracking the movements of the light emitting Move
controller. The camera records your
movement and image and feeds it into the system to be displayed on the
application but your body movements don’t affect the sensor beyond the movement
its tracking from the controller.
The Move.Me utilises this technology to provide software for
developers and programmers to create applications on the PlayStation and
computers that can take advantage of these tools outside of gaming.
SCEI want to see how this software can be used beyond
traditional gaming such as:
·
“Games and tools that support kids' physical
fitness and nutrition.
- Kid-friendly programming interfaces for computer/technology classes or individual learning.
- Physical therapy and rehabilitation.
- Sports physiology or fitness training.
- Music and the creative arts.
- Augmented reality, 3-D, and other leading-edge technologies.
- Addressing physically-challenged or special education needs.
In particular, Sony wanted to see how it could be used on
the PC/Mac
Practical Research
and Testing
Sony provided a code for the downloading and use of Move.me
to allow for practical research. During the primary research not much was able
to be ascertained beyond what had already been presented due to being unfamiliar
with coding and not being able to explore the system completely. It was
highlighted, however, how well not only the sensor of the camera responded to
movement (even when hidden behind a person) but also how well the image on
screen corresponded to the movement.
Secondary Research
In order to fully understand and appreciate the software, it
was necessary to view videos by those who have already worked with the Move.Me
and developed applications for it.
A rehabilitation and learning development application particularly
stood out:
The idea that users were instantly seeing a result to their actions and having a feeling of being more hands on to their learning was interesting.
The same can be said for the painting application. Although
it may not be suited for more advanced artists, as a child’s learning
application, it works well.
Potential and
Possible Applications
While it’s hard to clearly judge how much a success it may
be, once again due to the lack of coding knowledge, the secondary research
prompted an idea for further child and student development using the move.me.
Similar to a typing training game like The Typing of The
Dead
With the Move.Me users would mimic the actions of skill developing exercises. Potential for it can be seen already in the Sports Champions games with the accuracy based sports like Archery. Using two controllers, even young children can work on their balancing skills by, for example, mimicking walking on a balancing beam.
Wall climbing can help develop upper body strength in the
way the rehabilitation application worked, as well as the student’s logical
skills by them needing to determine the most convenient route up the wall and
working out where to reach for next.
Similarly, an application allowing the users to step into
the virtual world and complete tasks which wouldn’t be safe or practical in
reality can be beneficial in a classroom. An example would be for a science
class. The student, in a sense, has the experience of completing an experiment as
though they were actually holding the beakers or equipment as they would be in
a real life situation.
This could be applied to adult learning and job training
too. For example, someone wanting to get a licence for operating a Cherry
Picker could make use of this application when practising the controls and being
in the cockpit.
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