Move.me To Open up the Development Sphere to Playstation Players

Motion based controllers have brought video games to a much wider and more casual audience. The revolution which started on the Wii has been adopted by the Xbox with the Kinnect and the Playstation with the Move.

Now In an effort to get even more people involved, Sony is releasing tools that will allow players develop applications for the PlayStation Move all by themselves. Historically game development has been kept to the professionals but Sony is banking that as with the motion gaming revolution itself, a wider and more casual base of game makers will step to the plate.

Called Move.me the software will be offered in the PlayStation Network this spring. "So, what exactly is Move.Me? In short, Move.Me is a server application that runs on the PS3 system. It allows anyone with a PS3 to experiment with motion controls and is officially sanctioned and supported by Sony Computer Entertainment," John McCutchan, senior engineer with SCEA’s Developer Support team, wrote on Sony's official blog. "Move.Me sends the complete state of the PlayStation Move and navigation controllers to the PC, giving you the exact same data that licensed developers typically have access to."

Opening up game development to the players is a great way to engage the audience. Games like “Little Big Planet 2” and “Halo: Reach” challenge the community to create content , and have produced mind bending content will extended the life cycles of those games considerably. The option to further enhance the Move is something as of yet unexplored with other motion controlled gaming interfaces and should offer surprising results in the end.

Sony has suggested that the utility could allow players to program games and tools that support physical fitness and nutrition, create kid-friendly programming interfaces for computer/technology classes, provide physical therapy and rehabilitation support and foster music and the creative arts programs.

While all of these suggestion are likely to be used as the basis for the games that come out of Move.me, theres really no way to tell just how far the Playstation community will be able to take this totally new usability.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Chris DiMarco