Sony Brings Harry Potter to The Brand New Wonderbook

Sony used the E3 2012 conference to unveil its latest product named the Wonderbook along with its first title Book of Spells made in collaboration with Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. The Wonderbook is another step in promoting Sony’s Move motion controller and Playstation Move. The new gadget looks like a book but is a device that allows the user of the Playstation Move to utilize the Playstation Eye camera to experience an augmented reality story.

In the presentation at E3 Sony showcased many features of the new device including how to use it along with the Playstation 3 and Playstation Eye camera. Users hold up the book so that the camera detects it and then displays it on the TV screen. Images and characters from the book will appear on the screen alongside the user and the book. The user will not be looking at the book but the TV screen where they can play mini games or watch the story unfold. The first title to be available for the Wonderbook is The Book of Spells from the Harry Potters series which allows interaction with the Playstation Move stick that appears on screen as a magic wand. The game allows the user to learn magic spells in the virtual world and use those newly learned abilities.

The boundaries of the new device are yet to be explored but with a great Harry Potter title on board fans of the book will have a good idea of what to expect from other titles. Sony is marketing the Wonderbook as a new way for children to read books but initial observations from reviewers claim that the entire package would be very expensive because it requires the purchase of the console, camera, Wonderbook and Move stick.

The Wonderbook presentation was the only brand new piece of hardware that Sony showcased during the event. Its other showpieces included mostly games upcoming titles for its existing console.