Motion control may be the future of consoles, but it’s about to make its way to the PC. PC gaming has had its fair share of awful motion control gimmicks in the past, one product may have found its way to mainstream success through the world’s largest digital games distribution service – Steam.
At GDC today, it was announced that Razer and Sixense Entertainment have inked a deal with Valve over the use of its Razer Hydra motion control peripheral. As part of the deal, four of Valve’s most popular titles – Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 – all now support the Hydra. As an added bonus, future Valve titles like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be supporting the Hydra.
The Razer Hydra’s proprietary Sixense MotionCreator 2.0 software has also been integrated with Steam to provide motion control to over 250 of the most popular games on the service. For those Steam users who buy the Hydra, they will get automatic updates for all their games. There will also be a new in-game overlay on Steam that allows gamers to view control maps as they play.
“The Razer Hydra’s magnetic motion-sensing technology is the fastest and most precise to deliver a level of gaming immersion other motion-sensing tech in the industry right now can only dream of. Gamers are going to experience Valve’s new and legacy games in an amazing and fun way,” said Robert ‘RazerGuy’ Krakoff, President, Razer USA.
The Hydra works by tracking your hand movements with two motion-sensing controllers. It uses electromagnetic fields to detect hand movements down to a millimeter.
The Sixense SDK is also avaiable for Mac and Linux for those games that are available for play on their respective operating systems. The SDKs for all three OSes are now available from Steam.
The Razer Hydra is now available from the Razer store at $99.99. It also comes in a bundle with Portal 2 from leading retailers.
Have a video of Portal 2 being played with the Razer Hydra: