Gaming comes to life with Sony Playstation Wonderbook

Gaming has come a long way over just the last few years.  It’s not just the Nintendo Wii U which is set to shake things up as we come to the end of the year. This Christmas Sony Playstation takes it a step further with the augmented reality Wonderbook.

We’ve seen some pretty good executions of augmented reality already through the Nintendo 3DS and PSVita. Using cards you can point the 3DS and Vita at a spot in reality and see characters and games come to life on screen as if they were there with you… except that they are clearly not. Anyway…

The Wonderbook is no different, except for the scale. The mutli-page book has specially colour coded areas and when combined with your Playstation camera and Move controller the first installment of the Wonderbook will take you into JK Rowling’s Harry Potter inspired world of magic and spells through the Book of Spells.

It’s more of an adventure than a game, so your kids will want to be ready for more of a story telling experience than a straight out game. Leaving that aside the technology is brilliant.

The move controller itself is turned into a type of wand on screen. No matter how you hold the controller in reality the system seems to be able to perfectly adapt the virtual wand on screen so it actually looks pretty seamless.

When the book comes to life it’s certainly impressive, but the real stunner comes when you move the book or spin it to explore things within.

If you have a PS3 and you have kids over six years old, the Wonderbook is going to be the perfect Christmas gift.

For those with a Move controller and Playstation Eye (camera) already, the book will set you back $49.95 with the Book of Spells game. If you are new to the Eye and Move experience, a complete bundle with controller, camera, Wonderbook and Book of Spells game will be $99.95.  Available this month – put it on Santa’s list.