It was 2002 when Hollywood movie Minority Report introduced the mainstream to a new controller concept. Tom Cruise, alpha-geek/supercop superior of the future, was not content with sitting down and using a mouse. After all, hunching over a computer generally looks very bad on film and a dry expository scene desperately needed more action. Out went the mouse and in came Tom Cruise, orchestra conductor extraordinary. The subtle movements of a mouse were replaced by broad exaggerated motions that would have put any gangster rapper to shame, lending movement to a scene that otherwise would be three people staring a digital wall. Nobody questioned the validity of this supposed futurism, not even when the scene had people transport information from one screen to the next on plastic plates. I guess nobody told people in Hollywood WiFi had already been invented, or network cables for that matter.

          Nevertheless, the idea was never quite forgotten, did definitely catch on with the Wii and this year marks the point in time, when every console finally had some sort of tracking system for exaggerated movements in the vein of Minority Report. Motion controls try to leave the realm of the gimmick and make a push to become a dominant force. For a second, let us forget the quality of most motion games and assume, they all control as good as games on a joypad and they cover as many genres as games played with a joypad. Would they stand a chance under perfect conditions? My answer is no, even if motion controls were perfect, they would still not be the future.

          Anybody who has ever written something on a typewriter should know why. Remember typewriters? Those giant contraptions which forced you to to move the entire hand at the wrist each time you put in a letter? Remember when electronic typewriters came along and suddenly your wrist remained still and your fingers just started to wander across the keyboard? It was a revolution, suddenly typing had become less strenuous, there were less muscles involved, there was a steep increase in the amount of letters an average person could type per minute, and it became easier to type for hours. It would not have been impossible to construct computer keyboards as if they were ancient typewriters, requiring the user to give each letter a pronounced jolt. But by that time, it was apparent that a computer did not need to pick up on grand gestures, it was made for picking up subtle commands.

          Over the years, computers became masters at picking up tiny movements by their users. Pushing your mouse half a centimeter covers 1600 pixels on screen these days. Precision in this realm means the computer is very apt in picking up tiny movements. Joypads slowly grew into keyboards. No longer did they have two buttons, but they rather had each finger rest in the vicinity of multiple buttons. Controls, that was not a console registering whether player one or player two was waving his hands in the air, it was knowing the difference between a slight twitch of the left ringfinger from a microscopic readjustment of the thumb. Smaller movements lead to less muscle activity, meaning a player can do what he likes for far longer amounts of time.

          This is the natural limit current motion controls have and why they will not replace best-selling titles of today anytime soon. Even if we assumed them to be perfect, we know that they will quickly exhaust us and will not be compatible with a four hour MMO raid, or a two hour Call of Duty binge. It comes as no surprise when companies push the fitness aspect of motion games any chance they get. Because ultimately publishers are aware of the strenuous nature of motion gaming and try to convert this bug into a feature by guilt tripping customers into believing their recreational hobby was now part of some fitness regime. I personally need fitness in gaming as much as I need to ride on an exercise bike while watching Fight Club. The general consensus of society is that people watch TV on their couch in their living room with the flowery scent, not in their sweaty fitness chamber in a cellar room with all ceramic tiles for easier steam cleaning. So in order to really replace classic controls, motion controls would need to be able to pick up on tiny movements of the player, not just jumps to left and steps to the right.

          For the moment, we are hyped on motion controls and are willing to buy into the fiction of virtual bowling and virtual sword fighting. We willingly omit the parts, where the whole control scheme falls apart, just as we were willing to put up with 8-bit graphics. We ignore that a motion controller can never give the feedback of two real swords clashing together, or a tennis rack hitting a ball. We never feel the tension of the bow string, or the weight of the shield as we try to raise it into position. We are mimes of action heroes, not action heroes ourselves. For that we would have to leave our living room and that is the one thing a console manufacturer shall never ask of us. Until, of course, the first one does, causing the next wave of outdoor electronic gaming hysteria.

          And even though our avatars on screen react to the sword-swipes taking place, our motion controller does not, we, the players, do neither. Each time an interaction happens in the game, the fiction of the player in the real world breaks for a slight moment, since the motion controller and sword in the fantasy world do no longer align. They go out of synch each time they impact something that is only there in the virtual world. The player becomes aware of that and has to wait for the avatar on the screen to recover from a hit and bring the sword back to the position the player holds his motion controller. Soon the game is again revealed as having very abstract controls, merely requiring over-exaggerated motions instead of gentle button pushes.

          Classic controller based games are more upfront about this. They do not try to fool gamers into believing they are in their flat who they are on screen. They draw upon being able to tell the player that for 30 minutes he is not who he is. A player who does not buy into the fiction of his motions being translated into the game, a player who is just queuing commands by pushing buttons. He never has the realization of the controls not being real, because he made a contract with the game to ignore that from the very start. The wish to put the pedal to the metal is in the brain and the brain is fine whether this means legwork, or finger-twitching. Not only does the gamer using button controls stay deeper into the fiction, he also can enjoy the fiction for longer. Neither will the game frustrate the player by constantly going out of synch with his motions, nor will his shoulder remind him of not being Conan the Barbarian after what already was a long day. Test it for yourself, pretend playing a shooter without holding a controller and look at your hands. Notice how little movement there is? That is efficiency at work. Now duck behind your couch, jump across it and pretend holding a rifle shooting at enemies.

          Games are ultimately entertainment and as such they try to pamper the lazy bone of people. Trying to do a mad drill instructor game that insults you for doing sissy push-up is a niche, just as fitness TV programs are. Jumping around in front of the TV is a novelty with a limited appeal time. As fun as it might be taking cover behind the couch in an action game, at some point it will get old. Publishers do not mind that. They are ok, with motion gaming being a novelty, because novelties sell this time of year and they do not care, if it entertains people one or 50 hours. They are not selling at a loss, they do not care if it collects dust in a month. The gamer, however, is interested in getting a bit more bang for the buck and should question the appeal of motion gaming beyond initial curiosity.

          So should you these days be asked by not-yet gamers, whether or not they should get into gaming, now that it is supposedly accessible to them, do yourself a favor and tell them about the real future of controls. A revolutionary type of controller that acknowledges a person's interest in recreation in front to the TV is a holy place not to be disturbed by any type of tiring activity. Tell them how much control can be at a simple tip of their fingers, instead a tiring wave of their arm. People understand TV remotes with 50 dedicated buttons, they will be fine with a controller, as long as the game itself hooks them, which is the real problem. Ask your friends when the last time was they went dancing, or sword fighting, or bowling and ask them if they need a computer to score them on a pantomime's version of all those activities, should they decide to do either at home. Soon you will find, they are all better off sticking to Singstar as singing is an activity with a much broader appeal, than Wii Sports or its clones could ever hope to achieve.

          Full body immersion might be fun for a child, which for Micrsosft and Sony is important in an effort not to lose customers early to Nintendo forever. But this trend to appeal to young audiences on part of Sony and Microsoft is not about the future of gaming, it is about the future of their market-share. They had written off Nintendo long ago, belittling them as the company that might also sell a few consoles, but Nintendo made them pay for these comments, laying waste to their global market share, by imprinting children to their product before Sony and Microsoft ever could. While Sony and Microsoft were wondering how they could adapt Nintendo controls to their audience, they entirely missed the point of Nintendo binding a younger audience to their platform and their intellectual properties. Even if Microsoft and Sony can now match the technology, they still cannot match the franchises and how children react to them. They tried and failed in that department, so it will remain a battle for second place. Expect fierce promotion trying to tell you the opposite, though.

          Motion controls now might be fun for a while and at the same time be very important for console manufacturers. But before motion controls can truly become the future, there will be many iterations to come. Further down the road, we might get controllers with buttons, which also pick up subtle wrist gestures better than a Sixaxis. EA's bread and butter, however, will remain Madden and Fifa with classic controls, not Lord Nelson's Pro Flag Semaphore 2012. Sure, there are some truly original things to be done still. But when we look at the current lineup of bestselling action and sports games, then they all put the player above the action. The player is not in the game, he is one level above the game, having a perspective and overview of the match field most professional athletes do not have.

          Putting the player back inside the game is a step down from that. How can a step back be the future? When we look at current games, they can interpret tiny muscle reflexes. How is a giant waving of the arms the future? When we look at current games, they are bestsellers in an older demographic. How are motion controls mainly exciting children the future? Motion controls have a long way to go, before they are a match for a current joypad, when it comes to precision, as well as response time, as well as number of potential commands. Motion games might introduce a new type of player, they might be a fun novelty for everybody for a while, but when it comes to trying to find the apex of gaming, they are hardly worth considering right now, or anytime soon.