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#trademarks Add one more name to the pile of potential monikers for Sony's soon to be unveiled PlayStation Motion Controller, the PlayStation Move. More »

Another candidate has been added to the list of potential names for Sony's motion controller. Yesterday, Sony filed a European trademark, for use with a control device, for "PlayStation Move." It sounds fitting for a motion controller! (It's application number 008936544 in the European trademark database, if you'd like to see it in its native habitat.)

In addition to that trademark, NeoGAFfer gofreak found another trademark for the logo seen here, which looks more like an A for Arc than an M for Move. We have yet to verify the image ourselves in the trademark database, however.

In any case, we're likely to find out more about whatever this thing is called during GDC.

[Via NeoGAF, The Netwerk]

#trademarks A new trademark from PlayStation 3 maker Sony lends more credibility to the rumor that its forthcoming motion controller—still officially the PlayStation Motion Controller—will be called Arc. Konami's new Gradius Arc trademark, however, is something else. More »

Hear what industry giants think about Natal and Sony's motion controller.

Another round of evidence suggesting that Sony will call its ball-and-stick thingamabob "PlayStation Arc": A Japanese trademark for the name has been spotted by Siliconera. The "Arc" name has seen rumored since the beginning of the year -- and has been dropped by execs like THQ boss Brian Farrell.

Regardless of how you feel about the name, we think we can all agree it's a step up from the informative but decidedly boring "Sony Motion Controller." So, on to the GDC panel then?

In a stunning show that game industry analysts indeed are fallible human beings, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has changed his mind on Natal's supposed price. The prolific analyst prognosticated last year that price would be the primary factor in moving Natal hardware, leading him to predict that it would launch for less than $50. However, he now tells IndustryGamers that it will likely cost more, noting, "consumers will come to believe that the product and software has a lot of value." Furthermore, Pachter says that the higher that Microsoft and Sony price their motion controls, the less likely a consumer is to buy the competing product. In other words, if you spend $100 on Natal, you probably won't be too keen to plunk down another $100 for Sony's motion controller (and vice versa).

Pachter also tackles the DSi XL. He has some choice words for the beefy handheld, pointing out the $60 difference between the DS Lite and DSi XL models. "I'm not sure that bigger screens provide the value that Nintendo thinks," says Pachter, adding his belief that the entire DS line is due for a price cut. He concludes the device won't succeed at launch "since it costs only $10 less than a Wii."

Other topics discussed include Richard Garriott's foray into social media, the marketing of Dante's Inferno and the specter of third party success on the Wii -- "most third party Wii games just plain suck," says Pachter.

SCEA's Senior VP of Publisher Relations, Kevin Butler Rob Dyer, has some pretty lofty expectations for the still-unnamed PlayStation Motion Controller. Set for release this Fall, it must not only compete against the Wii, but Microsoft's controller-free foray into motion gaming, Project Natal. Dyer obviously believes that Sony's offering has an edge, and expects more games to take advantage of the controller: "My feeling is that we're going to have a lot more games, a lot more innovation," he told IndustryGamers.

"It's easier to develop for," Dyer explained. "You can use the same code base that you currently use for PS3 or 360 or even the Wii in order to get a motion controller game out. You can't do that with Natal." While Microsoft treads new territory with its Project Natal offering, Sony's motion controller does seem to play it safe, offering an experience not unlike the one offered by Nintendo. Last year, Resident Evil 5's Jun Takeuchi commented about the theoretical ease of porting Wii games to the PS3, a trait that should expedite the number of games available on Sony's platform.

Even the announced offerings have played it safe for now, with familiar titles like LittleBigPlanet and the aforementioned Resident Evil 5 representing a large majority of the Motion Controller's upcoming library. However, while Dyer may tout a larger library of titles, gamers are likely to be disappointed if Sony's line-up is little more than "Wii games in HD" and "old games with tacked-on motion controls." Perhaps Sony's upcoming GDC presentation will assuage some of our concerns.

Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain is hitting store shelves next week, and it may be the last game of its kind from director David Cage. Speaking with Eurogamer, Cage revealed "that Heavy Rain is the end of my personal trilogy trying to tell the same type of stories with serial killers and stuff, in the thriller genre." It does appear that Cage has had a certain fixation with the morbid, with his previous works -- Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) -- all centering around serial killers.

So what's next for Cage and crew beyond Heavy Rain? Multiplayer seems to be one consideration, with Cage calling it "the next challenge." "I have an idea of what it's going to take to make a multiplayer [game]," Cage admitted, adding it would be "very exciting."

Whatever Quantic Dream decides to pursue, it's likely to involve motion controls in some way. Considering Heavy Rain had motion controls in mind initially, it comes as no surprise that Cage continues to express his interest in PlayStation's upcoming peripheral. "We have a lot of interest in this motion controller, we start to play with it, and yeah, we definitely want to do something with it."

Just to prove we're willing to go the extra mile for you here at Joystiq, we taught ourselves Norwegian just to bring you the latest from David Cage's interview with Norwegian publication Dagbladet. Sadly, Mr. Cage's answers were not in Norwegian, meaning we wasted $8,000 and what our instructor Jokkum Frantzberg called "a very good ear for Norwegian." The entire project was not in vain, though, as we managed to find this quote from Cage regarding his upcoming Heavy Rain.

"If you are talking about Motion Control, this is something we initially considered for Heavy Rain. The very first version of the game design was based on motion control, but it was not feasible at the time," he said. Dagbladet later helped us confirm via one of Cage's reps that he had hoped to design the game for the PlayStation Motion Controller originally, but felt the tech simply wasn't far enough along.

Cage went on to add, "I have a lot of interest in Sony's motion device and there is a good chance that we announce something about it in the coming weeks." We don't know what he'll announce, but we certainly hope that it'll be in Norwegian.

Motion controller remains nameless.

Now there's a name we've heard before: "PlayStation Arc." Only now instead of being bandied around as rumor, it's been uttered by someone who should know something about it -- THQ chief executive officer Brian Farrell -- multiple times during the same investor call. "We are focused on our continued leadership in [casual games], taking advantage of the lower hardware price points that we expect will attract new mass market gamers, and new family-friendly platforms such as Microsoft's Natal and the PlayStation Arc motion controller," he announced. The as-of-yet officially named controller -- which was recently bumped back for release this fall -- was referred to as "Arc" by Farrell several more times, during both his prepared statement and subsequent Q&A session. Responding to a question on the company's plans for Natal and "Arc," Farrell replied that THQ "would like to be there at launch" for both motion control devices. We've contacted Sony for comment on Farrell's ... comments, but don't expect its reps to be as loose-lipped as the THQ boss.

Here's some encouraging news for those hoping that the PlayStation Motion Controller (pleaseannouncethenamealready!) will give a reason to knock the dust off your old PlayStation Eye. According to a Nikkei report spotted by Andriasang, the device, which pairs with the Eye, will have "around 10 or so games" by year's end, including sports and pet raising titles. We've been disappointed by the game support for the Eye so far, outside of the ability to construct extensive scrotum-centric LBP sticker libraries. Here's hoping that these promised releases can take all the Eyes sitting on our shelves from novelty to necessity.

Sony and Microsoft will go head-to-head with new control schemes.

Sony's wand not hitting this spring.

Sony has just announced that the still-unnamed PlayStation Motion Controller won't hit its targeted spring 2010 release date -- it's now slated for a worldwide release this fall. In a press release, SCEI president Kaz Hirai cited a desire to "offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users" as the reason for the delay, and indicated that Sony will be revealing the launch software lineup soon, including first-party games and games from other companies, "whom we have been working closely with." The good news is that Sony now has more time not only to line up third party support for the peripheral, but come up with a name as well. The bad news is that Sony is dropping whatever advantage an earlier release would have given the device over the much more publicized Xbox 360 motion controller, Project Natal.

If you're excited about finally having a waggle wand for your PS3, but wondering how weird plastic add-ons might fit into the activities, these patent images reveal that Sony is thinking about all that and more. And by "more" we mean: things that might actually be kind of useful. While the designs detailed in this patent application aren't necessarily being considered for the retail release, they're at least an indication of what ideas have been thrown around for the Playstation Motion Controller. Considering that the patent was filed in April, well before the prototypes we've seen were produced, we do have our doubts about many of these illustrations being worked into the final model. Several methods are shown for turning the Motion Controller into a Dual Shock-esque device, from an inconspicuous bar through the middle of two, to a weird handle with buttons on it that snakes around and connects to the top of the wand. Another image shows two Motion Controllers connected at the bottoms, forming what kind of looks like handlebars. Perhaps most enticing (especially if it's used): removable faceplates, allowing players to choose from buttons, a d-pad or a dial for the front of the controller. [Via Kotaku]

Company also has ten Project Natal titles planned.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony has an "official" name for its respective motion project. At the very least, Microsoft has donned a far more attractive (and marketable) codename for its tech: "Project Natal" versus the clunky-but-aptly titled "PlayStation Motion Controller."One name Sony may be using with developers is "Sphere," a word that highlights the glowing colored orb central to the motion controller's technology. Sega producer Yasuhito Baba and his translator both referred to the controller as "Sphere" during an interview at Tokyo Game Show last month. Polyphony Digital's Kazunori Yamauchi also talked about the PlayStation Motion Controller when we asked him if Gran Turismo would support the "Sphere" peripheral.Sony representatives we chatted with admitted they were unfamiliar with the "Sphere" name, meaning it may be strictly a development codename for now.

During Tokyo Game Show last week we crashed Polyphony Digital's studio and chatted up Kazunori Yamauchi about ... Gran Turismo 6? Wait -- what? Just watch the interview.Selected excerpts below:Joystiq: Are there any plans to bring Gran Turismo PSP's "Party Mode" to GT5?Yamauchi: I'm glad you noticed that. What we really worked hard to make the PSP portable fun and interesting is in those types of details. Obviously, these are ideas we worked hard on and they will be carried over in some form into GT5.In Gran Turismo, with its ten years of history, the people that who good at playing the game are really, really good at playing the game. Of course, there are a lot of first-time players that want to get into the game, and it was a major theme for us to develop the game so it would be easier for them to get into it. With the party races and these game modes we've developed for the PSP, we've come to one solution for that aspect.

Apparently, Seed Studios was intrigued by the PlayStation Motion Controller demo that was shown off during E3 -- particularly the part that showed how the peripheral could be used in a real-time strategy game. The developer recently announced that the release of its upcoming PSN strategy title Under Siege had been bumped to Spring 2010 in order to incorporate the sphere-tipped device into the game's control scheme. Seed will also be working to add a few more features to the game before its dealyed launch, including a replay editor, photo mode, and picture-in-picture video chat. That last part is unfortunate -- as with all methods of motion control, we don't really want to circulate footage of us flailing about with a colorful wand grasped in our oafish claws. Gallery: Under Siege

Playstation.Blog has posted a new video recreating Sony's E3 demo of the Playstation Motion Controller. Well, most of the E3 demo, anyway -- the video does not recreate the nifty sword and bow demonstrations. Still, the rest of the demo, including spray paint, pencils, FPS mode, RTS gameplay and the manipulation of several different objects is all there. Even better, now the footage is in focus and shaky-cam free. Also, since the demo is no longer limited to the time (and nerve) constraints of E3, the technology wizards behind Sony's want get to explain everything in more detail. There's also a few things revealed that Sony didn't have time to show at E3, like fire-breathing domino snakes. Seriously. Find the full video after the break.