Wonderbook: PlayStation's Least Used Feature | The Golden Bolt

[@TheGoldenBolt]

The Wii's Least Used Feature: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoHXnWuEg9WWepo More like one-hit Wonderbook. If this made you chuckle, please like the video so my family stops calling me a disappointment.

[@lepels]

Super polished video, I'd never heard of the Wonderbook!

[@Capta1nAsh]

Book so rare that it wasn’t even in Astro’s playroom

[@goldglovegrappler1382]

I watched E3 every year for roughly a decade because of all the guaranteed online discourse and even owned a PS3 and I have absolutely zero recollection of this at all.

[@R3AL-AIM]

Same thing here. I had both a 360/PS3, eventually having the Kinect and messing with my buddies PSMove. After having the PS2 EyeToy, I saw it safe not to invest in PSMove 😂 Even though the Kinect wasn't much more useful outside of Skype, the mic and voice commands.

[@Ronbotnik]

same here, and i fell for ALL of sonys gimmicky stuff at the time. I had the ps move, i had the ps eye, i preordered the vita! and i have literally never seen nor heard of this book before today lol

[@SmokeyChipOatley]

If this video dropped on April 1st I would have believed it to be an elaborate prank.

[@ShinYaguchiSama]

Same Is this the Mandela effect

[@kricku]

I remember the game but I must have missed the part where it's a peripheral

[@PopitTart_]

the mention of "yes, im treating the Vita itself as an accessory" reminds me of another feature in the running for Least Used PlayStation Feature Ever: Cross-Controller. Not Cross-Play or Remote Play, this is instead a seperate feature that games had to actually design for. It essentially made the Vita work like a Wii U gamepad, and there were also only 4 games to support it! One of which, LBP 2, even locks it behind paid DLC.

[@NottJoeyOfficial]

That actually sounds cool, do you happen to know the other games that support it?

[@XJLuna]

@@NottJoeyOfficial The Deus Ex game on ps3 supports it. I bought it specifically because of that feature and then never played it.

[@ExtraThiccc]

​@@XJLunait works very badly. The game's performance halves while it's activated, and the TouchPad doesn't even work

[@TheGoldenBolt]

I didn't think somebody would actually get the dig as a reference so quickly, rather than just a fun poke at the Vita! I thought about mentioning it and ruining the joke, but I figured there's a good chance there's a fifth game out there that supports Cross-Controller that'd break the tie.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

honestly would be a cool feature for people who owned both Imagine someone owning two switches being able to play Wii U ports on dual screens like they would on Wii U

[@UnabridgedGamer]

"Odds are good you've never seen one in the wild" ... *Quietly holds up his Wonderbook with a copy of Diggs Nightcrawler* I've been meaning to do a video of my own on it for a bit, but it got buried during a house move. XD

[@MarikoRawralton]

The Wonderbook feels like a long lost Labo experiment that Nintendo never produced.

[@RadeonVega64]

yep

[@coolcommcollect]

My guy will find the least known feature of anything and make a documentary out of it

[@albertand2484]

I was one of the kids that owned a Wonderbook (still have it now) and thought it was the coolest thing ever (do not think that anymore, it is mildly interesting at best lol)

[@lollaus]

I had the chance to participate in a hands-on and interviewing one of the SCE London developers here in Italy back in 2012. Then I bought all the 4 games and I have 2 copy of the books, all taken at low price. I must admin that it was a nice mixed reality experiment and Sony could have push more on it.

[@TheDeadmanTT]

I literally don't remember 2012, I was drunk that decade. But thanks for catching me up on noteworthy events.

[@ghostbabel]

As someone who had / has an autistic hyperfixation on PlayStation / Sony and it’s history, I have never ever heard of this and I’m shocked that this left the drawing board 💀

[@SamuelSarette]

Diggs Nightcrawler is the GOAT - I still have my book just for that

[@shannonbateswillis5022]

I’m so JEALOUS about that, my friend! What do you love about it, and would you buy a sequel?

[@SamsonSilvo]

Something like Wonderbook would work great nowadays with modern AR headset technology like the Meta Quest 3 or Apple's upcoming headset. Imagine controlling a tiny game world popping out of a physical book or game board that you're seeing not through a camera feed on your TV but *looking directly at* through your headset, with the headset's stereoscopy making said tiny world look like something you could actually touch!

[@SamsonSilvo]

@@SqualidsargeStudios LOL, I just used Apple's headset as an example of a VR headset that's AR compatible. I never said it was the best option. XD

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

And even less people would use it...

[@bland9876]

What you're describing reminds me of those AR cards that came with the 3DS. They were pretty cool but at the same time it makes sense that they didn't really catch on.

[@RainbowMan9407]

Funny thing: I actually know about this because of Caddicarus mentioning it twice in his PS1 accessories video. I can't believe that this accessory exists.

[@ExtraThiccc]

Same

[@daveintheAM]

Man, i dont even remember him mentioning it lmao

[@Pinkyorangegirl]

SAAAAAAME! And the entire time I wondered what is it about 😅

[@terabitez3374]

I must be having a Mandela effect situation because I vividly remember there being one more wonder book game that was muppets/sesame street

[@-Down-D-Stairs-]

I remember this being shown off at E3 and being absolutely baffled as to what it was and who it was intended for

[@MiniMii550]

Honestly thought the sixaxis motion functionality on the ps3 controller would be the most useless thing on the console but I am surprised to find out there’s was actually something far more underutilized

[@Jonkopaus]

I f'in had this as a child and was so hyped about it.... only getting to play the weird sport game :(

[@hermannandreaskran9392]

I remember the book, even got it to play the book of spells. Was a short but fun experience

[@BugsyFoga]

Take a look, It’s in a book.

[@JamesLawner]

The Book of Spells was the only thing I knew about in regards to Wonderbook. That Diggs Nightcrawler game looks sick tho.

[@filipgondol1299]

I own all 4 wonderbook games and i gotta say diggs nightcrawler was my favorite in czech dabing

[@kiwirocket64]

MAN i love weird AR shit like this honestly the AR cards on the 3ds are so goofy and weird same with this game its got some cool weirdness to it

[@Voltana2]

Have Diggs Nightcrawler sitting on the shelf but never played it. Might actually go and give it a try after watching this. Great video!

[@punk51984]

I still have this - legit found it in my closet while cleaning.

[@alwaysabiggafish3305]

I worked alongside one of the designers of the book of spells back when I was working on Rocksmith

[@Ospyro3em]

I do vaguely remember the the trailer for the Harry Potter one, but I had no idea there were others!

[@TheJapanmonte]

These are my favorite type of videos as someone who loves odd video game history. I always remember this e3 and was curious what happened to it! Thanks for making this video

[@JuniperMe]

Got all 4 on clearance when EB was getting rid of ps3 stuff, also the eyepet ps3 game. I thought diggs looked cool, but after seeing eyepet one of the kids thought it was so creepy they weren't interested in checking out the actual wonderbook stuff lol. I still have them in my pile of peripherals, still want to actually play Diggs one day. Also have eye of judgement but never had a big enough play field in front of the tv to test it properly. Got a load of cards for it too, but none of the hard to find 2nd/3rd series.

[@jordanwhite352]

FINALLY someone covered this this. I was already way out of the industry at this point, but there was a part of me that when I saw this goofy tech all I could think was is that it would be very useful to make a really interesting video game adaption of a Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.

[@hambor12]

I only remember this because Jerma985 had three videos of him using Wonderbooks from EIGHT years ago, posted on his main channel years before he moved to twitch.

[@FatDave2112]

Shoutout to your Tokyo Jungle shoutout! That game is dope. Bought it for a dollar, played for 400 hours. If you have the PS+ streaming package, it's totally worth checking out.

[@Corbellations]

I wasn't planning on it today, but looks like a good day for another Golden Bolt marathon

[@maliciousbugman]

That last segment really resonates with me - it feels like the 7th console gen had a ton of wasted potential, especially with the start of the generation promising MASSIVE market growth thanks to the expanded gaming market facilitated by the likes of Wii Sports and the rapid popularization of yearly shooters/sports games (plus Japanese console gaming experiencing a sort of "dark age"). And by the time the market DID "allow" for developers to tap into that lost potential, it was too late and the generation was visibly on the way out (plus in cases like the Wonderbook, relegated to much more niche avenues of exposure than their general platforms) in favor of a generation that was shaping up to be largely far more homogenized than ever before. Even the likes of the WiiU and 3DS saw developers quickly downplay those systems' gimmicks, the Kinect was trusted about as far as it could be thrown after the Xbone's disastrous reveal, and PSVR was a modest success but wasn't nearly representative of the PS4 platform as a whole (not to mention how badly PSVR2 has seemed to fizzle out).

[@The11michelle47]

I remember this so vividly funny enough! This was when I got really serious into watching the reveals. I thought it looked so awesome and never even realized it got made.

[@macaronimatt5531]

Fantastic retrospective, always remember seeing the commercial for this one and thinking it looked cool

[@Yorm_]

Your Commentary is always so good! I aspire to have mine like that 👏🏽

[@Swedishmafia101MemeCorporation]

I remember using those weird wand things with the original Playstation VR. They... weren't great. 💀

[@SamuelSarette]

They were amazing for Move stuff. They weren't designed as VR controllers

[@RAFMnBgaming]

I've had some experience with them and... they're ok as long as you get the early ps3 ones with magnetometers that actually keep the tracking working for long periods (good on sony making an unannounced running change to their wands to make them worse for VR on the console they built the VR for), but... still, no sticks/touchpads so that's a bit of a dealbreaker for modern VR. (Clarification, they removed the magnetometers mid PS3 run with no announcement or way to tell which ones have it other than by serial numbers, but didn't add them back for the PS4 versions anyway despite PSVR)

[@MyNameDolan]

I'm a huge PlayStation simp and I've never heard of this thing

[@otaking3582]

I bought this for my mom one Christmas, because she's a huge Harry Potter fan. I don't think she ever used it, though.

[@ch3burashka]

6:00 I literally started watching Eye of Judgment trailers while this played in the background.

[@2Old4Toys]

I got this Wonderbook with the 2 Harry Potter games and the dinosaur one for young Jr. back in the day. He was a huge Potter fan and he loved it. Was astonishing to see the tech showing himself and little friends on the telly interacting with the CGI. That detective one looks awesome too. Huge potential dropped.

[@bosscomplex]

i have sealed big box copies of both the HP "book of" games. should just finish the set finally

[@vargsieber]

Had one of those because when i bought a PS3 in 2012 a bundle with a PS3, the whole move setup, a wonderbook and the dinosaur game was about 25€ cheaper than a PS3 by itself. Never used it, but i had it.

[@tutacat]

The book is a very different controller to the motion wand. The move controller is more versatile because you can do more things interactively, with the buttons on it.

[@domportera]

it's surprising howbdeeply creative some of those game mechanics are. some of the neatest ideas are just doomed to die huh

[@knightofarkronia9968]

I wish they’d bring the Wonderbook back! Maybe make it for multiple consoles!

[@jetcore4598]

I actually had the wonder book, I had no idea how I learned of it back in the day and only ever got the book of spells but I’m a sucker for some good AR so that’s probably why I got it

[@Stelios78910]

Diggs looks sick ngl. Get this worm in PlayStation All-Stars 2 (if it ever happens) 😉

[@BurritoKingdom]

Steel Battalion tank controls was the least used peripheral. Though that's for the Xbox.

[@Luca-zt3oo]

oh i remember it. i was a harry potter junkie as a kid and i might have gotten it for christmas or something. had some fun and then forgotten about it lol

[@tutacat]

Simple QR on camera all the time is easier to track than matching gyroscope and light ball (no rotation other than the gyroscope)

[@emmajeane]

book of spells being on sale at the gamestop i worked at for like 3 bucks was my in on buying a ps move finally lol

[@kiwirocket64]

i know EXACTLY what im doing after this video im printing a GIANT ar card for my 3ds

[@blackomet5049]

Daaaaamn, I remember Jerma playing with this thing before he was a streamer

[@liamaspinall6906]

I still have my move controllers, I use them for vr, I still have a ps3, and that ratchet/spyro/sly game and should actually try the game once again

[@InhabitantOfOddworld]

I remember getting the Wonderbook and Book of Spells for Christmas one year

[@Smoke393]

I learned about this from Jerma’s old videos

[@GigaLem]

The Wonderbook isn't even in Astro's Playroom, the PSP attachments were but never the wonderbook. Dang the wonderbook might have been in an imperfect storm.

[@GeekExplosion]

I remember getting this for Christmas and it was …. An experience (?)

[@NateTool]

Well… I can now say that I own half of something! BTW: I lost the disc for the Wonderbook Book of Spells, I used it when I was 3 more or less (I’m 12). I also lost the Wonderbook… But I know it’s in my home somewhere!

[@bobmcguffin5706]

Having only 1 launch game also probably hampered chances of getting traction. If you show off a system (even one that's a peripheral for a peripheral) the next question is "oh wow what can it do?". The next next question is "oh wow what else?"

[@Dlipton01]

Wonderbook feels like the PlayStation equivalent of the estranged family member you don’t talk and pretend doesn’t exist.

[@DominoPivot]

Cedar and dragon heartstring, thirteen and a half inches, quite bendy. Also offered in medical grade silicone. 🤣

[@garioshi6525]

How many games were compatible with the PS3's printer feature?

[@lordeilluminati]

The games didnt exactly need to be compatible with the printer itself, unlike the same feature on the PS2. You could print photos and screenshots from the system itself

[@jorgediegoolivieri]

As a former owner of Wonderbook, i must say it was amusing at best. Always felt like something was missing. After watching your video, now i know... Great stuff as always. How about one focused on THE EYE OF JUDGMENT while we are on the subject?

[@Akanio_Vatheros]

This would have been the BEST platform to release a "Never Ending Story" adaptation!

[@GenericPast]

This could get a second life from the homebrew scene

[@veronicavaes4581]

The PS Move was pretty good. There's a reason the same hardware was used for the first VR headset's controllers. I'm not surprised this all worked pretty well.

[@dudeswerock]

Please do a BUZZ video, i still play buzz today and the legacy of it is huge

[@Arch_the_Protogen]

I'm probably very much in the minority when it comes to Wonderbook, be course I don't just own one, but two of them. Got the book itself in the book of spells box and had fun with it, then ordered book of potions as just the game by itself but the online store just kinda send me the boxed edition with another book free lol. They wanted those things out of their warehouse I bet. I remember these games quite fondly. I've played them all except the dinosaur one. While I love me some Harry Potter magic, I have to agree that Diggs Nightcrawler was the best game for the system by far.

[@RotroBreakteve]

I loooove weird deep cuts like this

[@just_so_meh_]

As a man who is interested in these products recently, as i started PlayStation console games and trophy hunting a few years ago, i love seeing these nifty things and be willing to collect these things and go and finish up these games that are long forgotten. I wanna collect these nifty things and work on them badly, and who knows when ilk get my hands on vr, the book, joycons, and even the camera.

[@Shadow__X]

My dad bought the book of spells for our ps3, I had no idea it was this obscure. I really liked it, although that doesn't mean much given I was probably like 8 at the time.

[@liamcollinson5695]

I often forget that the ps3 launch price was more than even current gen consoles. When i saw the wonder books card game i instantly thought of Yu-Gi-Oh its sad that never happened though

[@shadowjoker285]

I loved eye of Judgement such a great game sad it didn't continue.

[@flamshiz]

diggs reminds me of the VR game down the rabbit hole

[@ultimate_president]

I digress the single most less used feature for the PS3 must be the printing feature 😅

[@DuncDog]

This right here is one of the reasons I've stuck around after the LoD and R&C videos. I can't think of another channel that really gets to the heart of the esoteric features of consoles. Also, Vita was "so" close to killing the 3DS and slam dunking the mobile market before Nintendo got their head out of their ass and dropped the price significantly. Was effectively a write off after that unfortunately. Still have both actually lol.

[@spademagna2672]

Still own and frequently play both my 3DS and Vita

[@wazburg]

I'm a grown man and recently my Mum found my Book of Spells and she panicked thinking I was doing black magic witchcraft. I don't even believe in that kinda stuff, but to be fair I have met all the charmed sisters irl so guess it's not wrong for her to assume.

[@SuperRandomNation]

15:27 is that Ni no Kuni music I hear?

[@goldenultra]

Had the game since it was released I. E book of spells, only played it once. But now I am going to finish, it is not so bad if you are into retro gaming, which means..... forget it. 🎉😅🎉😢😂❤

[@Diwasho]

2:00 So it almost had The Little Prince huh? I see even in this adaptation they were going to put the fox character on the forefront of marketing, many adaptations of TLP do this lately and I don't get why. The fox doesn't show up in the story until near the end, is only featured in one chapter out of 27 and mentioned in a couple more chapters. It's not an irrelevant character but the rose is much more integral to the plot so it's weird that it's never given any focus in advertising, it's always about the fox. Even the pilot/narrator is much more crucial to the story but I get why he's never featured in anything, he was never given any illustrations in the book itself and he maintained an unseen presence.

[@Summer_and_Rain]

I had the wonder book, because I wanted to play the detective game :D It was a lot of fun, but it gets old pretty quick after having played the full game. It would have been fun to see what else they could have done with the system. I remember playstation 3 to be a pretty dead console, after having enjoyed ps1 and ps2 for year and years.

[@tedioustotoro4885]

I always wanted this as a kid but never did and got sad a few years later by how little support there was.

[@CreativeWM_Personal]

I have one of those somewhere, I only have Books Of Spells and I wish I had the other games TBH

[@RoxasHeroes]

Well the least used feature of ps3 is either this or printing to a printer

[@SnaksiXD]

You sure the Ps1 link cable wasn't used less?

[@TheGoldenBolt]

It was used in at least 10 times as many games!

[@TheGreatRenbox]

If I recall there were about like 50-56 games that used that.

[@indigomizumi]

Does anyone else want to see Diggs Nightcrawler adapted into a movie?

[@brickman409]

I remember this thing getting announced, but I never heard of it again. I always just assumed it got cancelled.

[@NabsterHax]

Sounds like this was hamstrung by the PS Move. Also, a major problem with these "gimmicky" technologies is often that the games themselves just aren't good. You can tell they've been designed by the people who made the technology and want to show off how cool the technology is, so they end up neglecting basic game design pillars. I'm sure we're all familiar with those times a game demands we use the gimmick (like motion controls) when it'd probably just be more fun to use a joystick. Where these new technologies actually start to work is actually when you completely forget you're using it. Like, a few hours into using a Wii controller and it just becomes an extension of yourself and a natural way to interact with the game, rather than something that stands out as special - which is what makes it genius and so accessible. Personally, I think AR is really cool. In some ways, more than full blown VR. It would've been neat to see what this accessory could have enabled had it been given a bit more care and attention. I could especially see something similar becoming popular if it was less focused on full-blown game-like experiences and more as a way to augment stories, audiovisual books, etc. with 3D scenes and animation.

[@vibes_4225]

i only know about it because of a caddicarus video where he just calls it a "playstation book" and doesn't acknowledge what it actually does

[@ph03beuwu]

bruh i got a nintendo ad watching this video lmao

[@m.g.trazor417]

Digs give me the same vibes as Dead Head Fred but for kids.

[@johntroutman7256]

This was great! Thanks for another interesting video.

[@katycatjulius]

I have it and i love it, and yes digs night crawler is amazing and i too would just like to show that game off to anyone that doesn't know it just because i feel like they have to have at least seen it. however i am missing book of potions and walking with dinosaurs, i am hoping to grab those at some point. And yes i am one of those people that bought wonderbook with book of spells when it released not that long ago

[@mrbransformer4184]

This thing looked so neat.😊

[@sosvaneey993]

i still use my eyetoy for discord on the pc, mainly the mic

[@Bane_Amesta]

Watching this only becasue I found one of these on the wild. Is the whole dinosaurs game, with a DVD of the same brand. And no, we can't try it since we don't have the Move or the camera lol

[@RichManSCTV0]

Meanwhile Jerma still played this