Sony reveals high hopes for PS3 wand

Sony Computer Entertainment America exec John Koller has said the company is confident in the power of the PS3's new magic wand.

"We look at motion control as being that much more than what exists on the market," he told GamePro. "The Holy Grail of gaming is placing you as a consumer into the game physically. When we provide further details, people will see exactly where we're going."

According to Koller, the PS3 wand will work with games from "a real wide variety" of genres. "The areas that are going to be really critical to our success will be family games, as well as shooters and sports games," he said.

"Those are going to be the areas that will really define success, because they're areas that quite honestly, I think Project Natal and the Wii are going to have trouble matching, from a differentiation standpoint."

Sony's "three big pillars" for 2010 are motion control, 3D gaming and PlayStation Network. You can also expect plenty of firmware updates, excitingly. "A lot of what you'll see in terms of changes to the PS3 are going to be done through firmware for the foreseeable future. There's a lot features and functions we have planned there. I think that 2010 will be a big year for that," predicted Koller.

Then there are the games, of course. "Going into the back half of the year, we have a number of key launches. We haven't really announced all of them yet, but the titles that will be launching at the time are going to be very exciting," Koller said.

"Some of the big franchises, as well as new IPs have new ways to game, not motion control gaming, but in other ways. It's going to be a really strong lineup."