{"id":15256,"date":"2011-11-02T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T07:11:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-09T12:58:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T10:58:01","slug":"sony-is-copying-nintendo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/15256-sony-is-copying-nintendo","title":{"rendered":"Sony is copying Nintendo"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one expected the Wii<\/a> to do as well as it did.<\/p>\n

People were laughing at the name from the start; game companies got nervous at the thought of having to make gamers move around – and the ‘hardcore’ crowd scoffed at the titles being launched along with it.<\/p>\n

I bet Sony<\/a> and Microsoft<\/a> execs were gathered in the same room during the launch, passing around champagne and laughing heartily together.<\/p>\n

Yet the Wii went on to sell more units than both PlayStation 3<\/a> and Xbox 360<\/a>, making everyone, including myself, choke on our words.<\/p>\n

Nintendo<\/a> were obviously onto something, and years later, the other big companies kind of clicked to the fact that they were missing out on a rather large market here.<\/p>\n

But Sony, it seems, isn’t just inspired by Nintendo – they look like they’re just fine with doing whatever they do; even if it’s stupid.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at 4 instances where Sony have simply ripped an idea from Nintendo’s idea pad.<\/p>\n

Playstation Move<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Sony and Microsoft caught onto the fact that motion sensing games were actually pretty cool (at least for the mainstream gamers) – obviously they needed to release their own versions to compete with the Wii.<\/p>\n

While Microsoft decided to go in a new direction with the Kinect<\/a> – Sony opted to keep some degree of controller-based gameplay; cue the PlayStation Move<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trouble is…it’s not very different to the Wii controller.<\/p>\n

Sure, it looks different, and the games you play are HD and stuff – but functionally, they’re exactly the same; it even has its own analogue peripheral, and a wealth of banal accessories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Portable Touch-screen interface<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following Nintendo’s trend to innovate, the Nintendo DS<\/a> did a lot of new things – it gave you two screens; one of which was touchscreen, giving you new ways to interact with your games.<\/p>\n

While the PlayStation Vita<\/a> looks and functions nothing like Nintendo’s portable – it does have a touchscreen interface…that gives you new ways of to interact with your games.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s a bit unfair to say that Sony is copying Nintendo in this regard, as touchscreens aren’t exactly a new idea – but it was implemented into a very popular portable gaming device by Nintendo first.<\/p>\n

A portable gaming device that found mainstream success and sold more units than its graphically-superior competition, the PSP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Playstation Move Heroes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nintendo has this little game called Super Smash Bros. Brawl – you may have heard of it.<\/p>\n

The colourful party game is one of the best and most popular games ever made – racking up a Metacritic score of 93<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It features a load of Nintendo characters (and others) from across a load of different titles and genres – all battling out and competing in various areas and different challenges.<\/p>\n

PlayStation Move Heroes isn’t the same kind of game, but the similarites are there – with a handful of popular PlayStation characters crossing over into each others’\u00a0 personal space.<\/p>\n

On top of that, a rumour started circulating<\/a> that PlayStation 3 would be getting its own Super Smash Bro. Brawl-esque game that would play pretty much exactly the same as its Nintendo counterpart.<\/p>\n

An unsubstantiated rumour that could very well be completely false – but would it really surprise anyone?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Biometric Controllers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone who follows gaming – and ridiculous technology proposals – will remember Nintendo’s Vitality Sensor.<\/p>\n

It was first unveiled at E3 2008, and was pegged by Nintendo as a massive technological advancement in the way we play games.<\/p>\n

You attached the sensor to your index finger, and it would read your biometric data as you played the game (heart-rate, the amount you were sweating, etc) and – in theory – the game would adjust itself to suit you.<\/p>\n

Basically, if you were playing a horror game and not getting scared enough, the game would change to give you more scares.<\/p>\n

In theory.<\/p>\n

While the concept was intriguing, it never caught on – and most people cite it as one of the most ludicrous, badly thought-out ideas to come out of Nintendo (very much like the Wii, hmmm?) – until now, it seems.<\/p>\n

According to a report over at Gamespot – Sony have patented their very own biometric sensor technology.<\/p>\n

According to the patent, there’s room for bio-sensory technology to be put into a DualShock 3 controller, Move controller as well as what looks to be a handheld device of some kind – likely the PS Vita.<\/p>\n

The patent describes effects akin to what was described above – with the data being used to alter the game-state.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to sit back and resort to school-yard tactics of yelling “Copycat! Stole a rat! Put it in his Sunday hat!” at Sony – but there’s a striking pattern forming here.<\/p>\n

Either Sony are blatantly mimicking everything Nintendo does – or Nintendo are simply too far ahead in the game and do everything first.<\/p>\n

I guess the best we can hope for is that if Sony are copying Nintendo, they learn from Nintendo’s mistakes and try to do things better.<\/p>\n

Source: Gamespot<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Are Sony copying Nintendo? Looks like it.<\/strong><\/a> << Comments and views<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only they’re lagging years behind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35623,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256\/revisions\/35623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}