Sega: ages of innovation

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Online gaming and motion sensitivity - why Sega was years ahead of its time

OK, so you're probably wondering why you're looking at a picture of a fishing rod controller. It's hard for such an object to be "ahead of its time" when the market's not exactly awash with fishing games today. But while we applaud its virtual fish-reeling abilities, it’s got a totally overlooked feature up its clean white sleeve.

You see, it senses motion. And not just fishing motion - fighting motion too. Load up Soul Calibur and try it. The horizontal and vertical attacks can be triggered with appropriate arm movements, allowing for gameplay very similar to something Wii've seen a lot of recently. Of course, the game wasn't developed with this as a primary feature, so it isn't perfect. But you're looking at a fully functional Wii remote ancestor, some seven years before Nintendo's "revolutionary" controller hit the shelves.

It's not the only motion sensing peripheral on Dreamcast either. Samba De Amigo 's maracas may have given the game a $80 price tag, but they knew when you were shaking them and how high you were shaking them in relation to the sensor bar on the floor. Sensor bar? Arm waving? All Dreamcast needed was a dearth of badly ported PS2 games with maraca/fishing rod controls shoehorned in and it would still be sold out today*.

*probably

Above: A Wii-mote by any other name? There's realmotion-sensing tech in that fishing controller

It's not the only motion sensing peripheral on Dreamcast either. Samba De Amigo 's maracas may have given the game a$80 price tag, but they knew when you were shaking them and how high you were shaking them in relation to the sensor bar on the floor. Sensor bar? Arm waving? All Dreamcast needed was a dearth of badly ported PS2 games with maraca/fishing rod controls shoehorned in and it would still be sold out today*.

*probably

Justin Towell
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.