Testing the Move.me

http://us.playstation.com/ps3/playstation-move/move-me/

The Move.me software isn't a game it's more of an application to create games and software in order for people to help take the Move in a new direction so that it's purpose isn't solely for gaming. Microsoft have done similar things with the Kinect in letting students and enthusiasts program for the Kinect. I think Sony are aiming for the move.me to be more accessible to a larger group of people and require less equipment. The wii motion controllers are also being used outside of gaming in applications such as teaching medical students.

The potential applications for the move are massive. In the video above we can see someone using them to control a robot but this could be developed to control larger vehicles or vehicles where it would be dangerous to have a human driving in it such as in bomb disposal units. Also if the technology for the movement was accurate it could be applied in medicine to help with scans and operations as the sensors are more accurate than Wii Motion. I also think it's a great idea to get people from various communities, be they students, professionals or just enthusiastic hobbyists, to get involved in creating and programming their own ideas. In recent years we have seen the popularity and success of a lot of open source communities such as those seen surrounding the Little Big Planet game and others such as Minecraft and even the App store for iOS. People like being given tools to develop their own thing and share it with a community so I think it's definitely a good idea for the Move.me to be available to anyone who has a PS3 and the Move controllers.

I was happy to be given the chance to test the move.me and really think about the potential it has in greater depth. I tested it with four fellow students at University.
My experience of it was pretty limited. We had access to the console and Move controllers but we didn't have any way of inputting any code and we found it impossible to come across a lead that would allow us to connect the PS3 console to a personal computer of any kind. None of us are programmers but we did manage to find some code online on the Move.me forum and some limited code provided by Sony themselves.
As we couldn't input anything we were limited to just waving a sword around, which was interesting but I would have liked to be able to see more from the program. I appreciate that it is in the beta testing stages but it would have been a lot more impressive if we had been able to see more.


Because of the experience we had with Move.me I have come to the following conclusions.

-The move.me software needs to be more accessible. The layout is very clinical with lines of code showing on screen and it's very off putting to someone like me who knows nothing about coding. I would also say that it needs to be easier to connect to a PC or to have some way to directly input code to the console. I think the key factor in he success in something like this is making it accessible to everyone and I think in it's current state it would put a lot of people off and would only really appeal to coders or those with a lot of technical knowledge.

-We agreed that the sword was good fun and that it would be really great if there was a way you could easily import your own pictures or 3D models into the software without having to input masses of code. This way players could easily build environments or use their own artwork so anything could be added to the Move controller, not just the onscreen sword. If there was some way you could load the images onto the PS3 and import them easily I think this would make the software a lot more accessible to people and give results quickly to get people interested. I think this is one of the key things about successes like the customisation in Little Big Planet, it's very simple and a lot can be done quite quickly so anyone can do it.

-I also think that Sony could produce something similar to the App Store or Xbox 360 indie game marketplace by creating somewhere that people can upload and share what they have created with other PS3 owners. I think that the sharing and community part of anything like this is really important, being able to share and get feedback from other people worldwide is an attractive factor to a lot of people and would give an incentive to use the application. Given that Sony already has the Playstation Network (PSN) I would have thought this would be relatively simple and could be a specific section or branch of that.

I think the main thing would be to make things as simple as possible and available and accessible to as many people as possible. We found the experience of the move.me very limited and not very fun as we couldn't do anything with it, I think this would be the case for a lot of people unless it's made more user friendly. I make these comments as someone who knows nothing about coding, I'm sure it would be great if you had access to a PC and knew how to program but I think the majority of people wouldn't and would be immediately put off using the software. As I said even just on appearance my first impressions as someone who isn't a programmer were fairly negative and I don't think this should be the case as the Move.me has the ability to produce some really creative and innovative applications.