Sony PlayStation Wonderbook hands-on (update: video added)
Last night, we caught a demo of PlayStation's new Wonderbook during the company's E3 press event. Today, we grabbed a few moments of hands-on time with the new PS Move peripheral at the Sony booth. As we learned last night, the first title for the new tech is a collaborative effort with J.K. Rowling, entitled Book of Spells. The kit makes use of an augmented reality book in tandem with the Move hardware to project images and animations (basically the game itself) right on the pages. Consisting of only six spreads (12 pages), the software will track your progression through the chapters, and beginning a new quest simply means heading to back to the front of the book. We got a closer look (free from last night's demo fail), so have a peep at the gallery below and head on past the break for some impressions.
Update: We've added a video of the hands-on just beyond the break for your viewing pleasure.
%Gallery-157207%
Wonderbook acts as an interactive text of sorts, as players learn lessons and spells in each chapter before having their knowledge tested and moving on. The PS Move project images and animation onto the surface of the book, and you're also able to move it around quite a bit to catch some alternate viewing angles of the action. In addition to using the controller as your wand, you'll also encounter scenarios where you'll need to brush sand off the AR surface or put a fire out with just your hands.
As we mentioned above, we didn't encounter any lag or hiccups during the course of our session with Book of Spells this time around. Game play was smooth and the added use of the Wonderbook played along quite nicely with the existing Move hardware. We were told that while this sort of sorcery education is at the forefront right now, the intent is to bring more real-life learning opportunities for the Wonderbook in the future -- dinosaurs were even mentioned. For now, though, we're left to wonder what more the tech will offer our living rooms upon its arrival.
