Sony Opens PS3 Move for Hacking

Following from the success that Microsoft has had by opening up the Kinect system to people making interesting hacks, Sony has followed suit…

Sony has lifted the lid on the rumoured PlayStation Move server – a piece of software known as Move.Me, which allows limited use of the motion controller on PC in order to create new games and applications for it.

The software is designed for “hobbyists and academics”, claimed Sony senior engineer John McCutchan on the PlayStation Blog, and grants access to “the exact the same data that licensed developers have.”

He claimed that “Even before PlayStation Move was publicly available to all of you, we were talking about the device’s potential implications for academics and researchers. Move.Me… is an opportunity for PlayStation to inspire new, revolutionary applications in other fields beyond gaming.”

Rather than running directly on PC, Move.Me involves running special server software on a PS3, which then communicates Move data to a nearby computer via LAN.

This is welcome news and the more opening up of APIs and systems to people to create cool stuff, the more cool things will be made, the more demand for the hardware will exist.  I also hope there will be more looking to such systems to create hacks that are non-game but using the game technology to help in other areas.  Overall it’s still a little too controlled, but a good start…