Sony wasn’t always the huge
electronics company we know today. Like any new company, they had to start out
small and make a name for themselves. Just after the end of World War II, two
men by the names of Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita started a small radio repair
shop in Tokyo, trying to do all they could to help people start again after the
chaos and destruction of the war. A year later, they formed a slightly bigger
company by the name of ‘Tokyo Tshushin Kogyo’ (‘Tokyo Telecommunications
Engineering Company’ in English). This company focused on the repairing and
manufacturing of radios and voltmeters, much like they had been doing
previously, but they aspired to also develop and design electronics. It was in
1950 when they had their first breakthrough when they built Japan’s first tape
recorder, and achieved a similar feat when they built the first transistor
radio in 1955. This was also the year that the company had grown so much since
its conception, that Ibuka and Morita felt it was time for a name change. The
company changed their name to ‘Sony’, which would go on to become one of the
biggest electronics companies in history. In 1960, Sony of America was born
along with the world’s first portable television. Over the next decade, Sony
grew even more and started to become a household name. They opened 4 new
factories to keep up with consumer demand for all of their new products and the
company could tell that things would only get better from here. In 1979, Sony
released the world’s first portable cassette player under the brand name
‘Walkman’. This would go on to become one of the biggest brands in music
history, spawning the first CD player in 1982 and becoming an even bigger hit.
In this same year, Sony started the manufacturing of home computers and CDs.
After all of these technological milestones, Sony decided to expand even
further by creating both a music and pictures division of the company towards
the end of the 1980’s. Even though their more popular products would steer away
from their previous endeavours, Sony would still play a key part in the
electronics industry for years to come. They finalized DVD in 1997, joined the
Ericcson phone company in 2001 to manufacture mobile phones, started the
popular ‘Bravia’ television brand in 2010 and so much more (mrdragon897872,
2011).
There was one field of technology
Sony hadn’t had much of a part in at this point in their lifespan, however –
the computer games industry. This was an industry that was rapidly growing in
popularity, with Nintendo and SEGA being the main competitors in the home
console market with the Super Nintendo (SNES) and SEGA Mega Drive (Genesis in
the states). SEGA was on top with a 52% share of the market and churning out
over 80 games per year to keep its customers happy. Nintendo, however, were
mostly relying on 3rd party efforts and waiting on Shigeru Miyamoto,
the brains behind the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda franchises, to create his
next masterpiece. SEGA had plenty of ground when it came to customer loyalty,
ever since Sonic the Hedgehog kicked them off to stardom in 1991. SEGA had also
recently release the SEGA CD, an attachment for the Mega Drive that could play
CD-ROM games and add a much higher level of graphical power. Nintendo looked at
their situation and figured they needed to do something to get back on top.
They figured that, since Sony had such an expert knowledge in the electronics
industry and the fact that the SNES used a Sony-based sound chip, they could
help each other out. Nintendo and Sony set out to make an attachment for the
SNES which would add a CD-ROM drive to the console, which boasted specs that
either equalled or surpassed the SEGA CD’s capabilities at half the retail cost
(Super NES Buyer’s Guide, 1992). This then-powerhouse was destined to be called
the Playstation and to be distributed by Sony.
Nintendo eventually started to have
doubts about the console and gaining success from it when they realised that
over half of the rights would remain in Sony’s name. Not even a day after the
Playstation was announced at an international games convention, Nintendo had
decided to turn around and ask Philips for help in working on a CD-based
console. While the Philips CD-i would go on to be a huge failure, Sony went on
to create the Playstation in their own image with the help of Sony veteran Ken
Kutaragi, a brash engineer with bright and brilliant ideas who had been working
at the company since 1975 (PlayStationMuseum, 2011). In 1993, Sony Computer
Entertainment was formed and the Playstation was released a year later. One
thing Sony didn’t have though was a name in the gaming industry. Nintendo had
Mario and Miyamoto and SEGA had Sonic and their huge arcade market on top of
everything else they had. At first they had a lot of trouble finding support
from 3rd parties to make games for their new console as it was
thought to be too expensive a process. It wasn’t until SEGA released ‘Virtua
Fighter’ for their newly-released SEGA Saturn console that developers could see
what could be done with this type of technological power and Sony was flooded
with requests and questions such as “can we make this on your console” and “is
this possible?”. After the Playstation was released in 1994 in Japan, it gained
great commercial success, selling over 1 million units in just 3 months. They
would then go on to release it worldwide a year later, to a similar success.
Sony wanted a mascot to rival Mario and Sonic, however, so they commissioned
Naughty Dog to create ‘Crash Bandicoot’. The game was a huge success and helped
to shift many more consoles after its release. For a business that was brand
new to the gaming scene, Sony had done pretty well for themselves. They had a
strong developer backing, a popular mascot and many happy customers to keep
entertained for years to come. In March 1999, Sony announced that they were
working on the successor to the Playstation, appropriately named the
Playstation 2. This console would go on to become the greatest-selling console
of all-time, with over 150 million units sold as of 31st January
2011. It seemed only natural for Sony to carry on this success, so in 2006 they
announced the Playstation 3. After its release, however, it was criticised for
being ‘Late, Expensive and Incompatible’ (Dan Tynan, 2006). It was costly and
difficult to program for compared to Microsoft’s second entry into the gaming
industry – the Xbox 360, which had already been on the market for over a year.
Sony had a lot of catching up to do and a lot of customers to satisfy. Over
time they did manage to keep up with the Xbox 360, and nowadays a lot of games
are made for the PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously.
In recent years, motion control has
become a hugely popular way to play games, attracting millions of new customers
from non-gaming demographics. While nearly all core gamers tend to prefer
traditional controller methods, there’s no denying that motion-controllers have
drawn in a whole new wave of people of all ages. Nintendo released the Wii to
outstanding success, so it was only a matter of time before Sony and Microsoft
would get in on the action. Kinect was Microsoft’s answer to the Wii – a full
body-tracking camera with the technology to capture the player’s movements and
translate it into a controller for the game they’re playing, similar to Sony’s
Playstation Eye camera accessory. Sony, on the other hand, decided to make
something that could be seen as a mix between Nintendo’s Wii remote and their
famous Dualshock controller. The Playstation Move controller would feature 1:1
response, a feature previously only available on the Wii if you bought an extra
accessory. Coupled with the PS3’s intense graphical power and online
capabilities, the Move was a sure-fire success, no? Well, unfortunately it
didn’t do as well as Sony might have hoped, but still well enough to start
something special. That something special is the Move.me application.
Sony
introduced Move.me to encourage students, instructors, hobbyists and
researchers to create innovative software for PC, Mac and internet platforms. It
has the power to aid people in creating exciting new ideas, one being that the
Move controller could control a small robot in reality, rather than just
something on-screen. The idea is for people to take the PS Move past the traditional
gaming field and experiment in fields such as (but not limited to) physical
therapy, creative arts, augmented reality and education. The downloadable
software enables you to connect your PS3 console to your PC over the internet
and use the full functions of the Move controller and Playstation Eye camera
while experimenting with all of the things it has to offer. It has a massive
potential to open up a whole new communicative field in gaming, and even
potentially interest more people into the coding side of things. By releasing
this software and opportunity to people, Sony has opened up a little more from
just being quite a ‘protective’ company and I think this will bring them
nothing but good. More people will be interested in the Move once innovative
applications are made and ready to be used by the public. The only problem with
releasing it so soon is that there will be hardly anything to show the
potential of the program. Once it kicks off, however, I think it will really
soar within the coding and idealistic communities. Sony’s open-source community
tools will also help people to interact and share ideas with each other, as
well as provide feedback.
My short time with the Playstation
Move saw me taking a look at the controller and using it in a typical situation
which was, in this case, swinging a sword around on-screen. There were two Move
controllers which were used to control 2 separate swords and I found that
having two controllers in such a close proximity did nothing to distort the
signal or anything like that. Every angle of my movements was perfectly
translated onto the screen, which is a key point in helping to come up with
potential uses for the hardware, as if there were any noticeable delays etc.,
some visions just would not be possible. I recorded my findings and went away
to think about a possible idea for an application that I would attempt to make
if I had the skills and equipment to do so.
I
personally think the Move.me could be used really well in conjunction with
educative storytelling in young classrooms. While animated stories are already
a popular thing, a more interactive story would draw children in even more.
This could range from interacting with characters and objects within the story
on-screen, using the camera for group interaction and plenty of other
opportunities. This could also be applied to teaching different subjects, too.
Science, maths, music…the possibilities are almost endless.
In conclusion, I think the Move.me
has so much potential that might take quite a while to truly be seen but once
enough people have dived into its world of almost endless possibilities, it
could end up being a hugely popular source for budding new developers to go and
bring their innovative ideas to life and share them with the world. Now Sony
has opened up a lot more in term of independent development, I can see a lot
more people feeling more comfortable in working with them and their products to
create outstanding titles and applications. Personally, I’m looking forward to
seeing how this sort of technology can be implemented into our everyday lives
rather than solely into video games. I can’t wait until people begin to unlock
the Playstation Move and Move.me’s exceedingly high potential.
Bibliography:
Move.Me Available on the PlayStation Network. (2011) Sony. Available from: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rko2GatzHvg&feature=related> [Accessed 24 February 2012]
Sony. (2012) History of the Sony Corporation. Available
from: <http://www.sony.co.uk/article/id/1060176719725> [Accessed 20 February 2012]
Sony shows off Move.Me. (2011) GamerLive.TV. Available from: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJjLpPikLKE> [Accessed 24 February 2012]
The Complete History of The Sony PlayStation.(2005) G4. Available from: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryi1QBA6XyI> [Accessed 19 February 2012]
