Moving On

What's more likely - and what Sony are probably quietly hoping to achieve a significant proportion of the Move's success through - is that the technology will expand the appeal of the PS3 in the family setting. The Wii has garnered a unique degree of "living room cred" - it's the console that the whole family can engage with, which ensures that it's not banished to a bedroom or study, but has pride of place under the TV in the living room. Move could, in theory, broaden the appeal of the PS3 to encompass not only core gamers, but also the downstream and family Wii audiences - a process already begun by products like SingStar, but somewhat stalled by the Wii's runaway success in this market.

The ideal scenario is this - that PlayStation Move ensures that households which already have a PS3 are encouraged either not to buy a Wii, or to stop buying kids' and social games for their Wii, and to spend that money on PS Move games instead, thus boosting Sony's revenue and its share of the software market. Meanwhile, the success of Move would add another significant string to the console's bow, making it into an easier sell to families. It's a logical move for a console whose key marketing pitch has been that it "does everything" - Sony will hope that in cases where "it's a Blu-Ray player, a movie rentals box, a hardcore games console and a karaoke machine" didn't work out, "it's got Wii-style user-friendly games too" will tip the balance.

And what of the hardcore gamer? Here, the strategy falters, for both Move and Natal. Ideally, it would be nice to get hardcore gamers to invest in the hardware and get publishers to support it in their software, and both Sony and Microsoft make noises in that direction regularly - but both firms know that while there are tons of upstream gamers who enjoy and engage with motion controls, the self-identifying "hardcore" have a strong resistance to the concept, and are most likely to remain welded to their joypads.

How that will pan out over the coming years is impossible to guess. It could be that great software finally brings that part of the market (which is lucrative, but not as lucrative as it is outspoken) over to the motion control camp. Equally, it could be that with the exception of some noble attempts, Natal and Move end up being firmly the preserve of family, social and kids games.

For now, at least, Sony and Microsoft will court the hardcore gamer. Their enthusiasm and support will be very helpful in the early months of both products' lifespans, after all. But in the long run, if the hardcore continue to play PS3 and 360 games on joypads, Sony and Microsoft will be happy enough. The people they want to convince with Move and Natal aren't the existing gamers sitting on the couch playing Modern Warfare 2 - they're the other family members in the household, for whom the PS3 or 360 is presently a closed door, and the Wii a much friendlier option.

The result is that how we measure the success of each peripheral will have to be carefully considered. Neither is hugely likely to sell console hardware in large volumes; while adding a family-friendly aspect to the machines will help sales in some respects, it's hard to see motion controls as a killer application for driving purchase in a market where the Wii already has such a large installed base. Rather, their success will be in driving software sales and broadening the userbase. If Move and Natal are working, look for an uptick not in console sales, but in tie ratio - and if they're not working, of course, listen for the sounds of laughter from Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto.