PlayStation Move Was "Ahead of Its Time," Will Be Important for Project Morpheus, Says Sony Exec

Motion gaming has largely fallen by the wayside, what with Xbox One‘s mandatory Kinect being dropped, Wii U focusing on its second screen, and PlayStation 4 not making much use of PlayStation Move. Sony worldwide studios boss Shuhei Yoshida believes there isn’t much interest in motion gaming right now, though he does think the Move will become essential once Sony’s Project Morpheus VR headset becomes available.

“Motion gaming was a big thing, but, like with social games, dance games, music or guitar games, I don’t think there’s a lot of appetite for another motion game at this moment,” Yoshida told Pocket-lint. That doesn’t make me feel great about the two Move controllers I have sitting on my shelf, but it’s hard to deny that many gamers and developers have moved on from motion controls–if they were ever on-board in the first place.

It’s not that Yoshida feels anything is wrong with Move; describing it as “a precise and accurate 3D input device,” he said the PS3/PS4 motion controller “was a bit ahead of its time.” According to him, that’s because it’s hard to take advantage of the 3D positional tracking it offers on a 2D screen.

“So now we are realizing that, when we do Project Morpheus, the one thing you want to do immediately is interact with an object in virtual space, and the one way to do that is that you need a 3D positioning input device, like PS Move,” Yoshida said.

Project Morpheus was unveiled earlier this year, and has since been seen at industry events and on TV shows. But as of yet, there’s been no real indication of when it will be available or how much it will cost. Sony says it won’t be out this year and that it’ll cost less than $1,000, which is no surprise and does little to narrow down the cost.

Oculus VR’s competing VR headset, the Oculus Rift, is currently available to developers for use on PC for $350. Like Morpheus, though, there’s no official word on exactly how much it will cost or when it’ll be released to the public. Oculus creator Palmer Luckey recently said he hopes it’ll be out in some form by the end of next year. The company is reportedly at work on its own motion controller for use with the Rift.

If you own a PlayStation Move, have you ever gotten much use out of it? Are you now holding out hope that you’ll end up using it with Project Morpheus? Let us know in the comments below.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX
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