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

The Wii's Least Used Feature: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tPtl8NNpcD8.html More like one-hit Wonderbook. If this made you chuckle, please like the video so my family stops calling me a disappointment.

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

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.

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.

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

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)

"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

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

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

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 💀

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.

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!

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

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

WHY THE FISH EATING A CARROT SOUND AT 3:45

I bought the Wonderbook for an easy Platinum Trophy then returned it the next day. I wonder how many other trophy hunters were as dedicated/delusional?

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.

I do wonder what would have happened if both Move and Wonderbook teams were allowed to cross pollinate so that the AR support of Playstation was just as ingrained in a PS5 world as the VR2. And what affect that might have had on Microsoft AR, which died on the vine. Yes, I think being able to explore ANY Minecraft world in full 3D normal space is a great idea, sepecially if it were to involve the crazy scene of modded Java edition.

I saw "The PS3's Least Used Feature" in the title, looked at the thumbnail, saw the wonderbook and sighed :/ I also was one of the few kids whose parents bought them a Wonderbook with one game (The Book of Spells :/). Shame it didn't really go anywhere. It's still there at my parent's home heh Maybe I'll try to get ahold of Diggs Nightcrawler and play it some day :D

I genuinely love your retrospectives into the lesser-known aspects of Playstation's history. I hope that you will do a Knack retrospective one day.

I picked up the Book of Spells around late 2017 when I saw it gathering dust on a shelf at my local games store. It was the only copy they ever got in and it never sold, so I got it for cheap. I loved the Wonderbook concept and quickly bought the other three games. My then-five year old niece and I played through all of Dinosaurs together. Interesting to see the history behind this all. That the Move controller was shoe-horned in makes so much sense, as the Wonderbook has more in common conceptually with the 'pure' AR that was probably the PS Vita's least used feature.

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

Take a look, It’s in a book.

You know its the least used feature when you only find out that it exists now.

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

Did i hear correctly? someone else acknowleged The Getaway: Black Monday? Now thats a deep cut.

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

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

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

Wow I completely missed this somehow, literally zero recollection of this lol.

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

Funny story, I own a Wonderbook, I actually bought the Book of Spells bundle many years ago for 5$, I did it mostly for the "lulz" and mock the game in see how bad it would be. But the joke's was on me because I actually ended up loving this thing and had a great time with it, heck it was probably one of the very few PS Move games that I really enjoyed to play it. After Book of Spells, I bought in my dummy European PSN account the digital bundle of Walking with Dinosaurs and Detective Diggs (it cost only 10€ over there, way cheaper than find the physical copies or buy each game separate digitally on the PS Stores of America) and again both games were pretty good, the only one that I'm missing to play is the Book of Potions. Anyway in any case it's a nice retrospective video but I'm disagree, the Wonderbook wasn't the less used PS peripheral feature on the PS3, that achievement goes to the PS Move Racing Wheel, that thing was probably the biggest peripheral fiasco that Sony made to the PS3, mostly because only TWO games were compatible with that thing: LittleBigPlanet Karting and Need for Speed: Most Wanted and that's it, I mean heck not even Gran Turismo 6 was compatible with it, lol!

I mainly heard about it when it showed up as a collectible in Astro's Playroom (it may've gotten a PS Stars trophy as well, but I could be wrong), but it's neat to see what potential it had. Though I have to disagree with your conclusion, while I don't think their creativity should be unregulated, I do think a spark of that creativity should be brought back to PS. Like yeah, it was streamlined, but it was done too much to the point where they mainly make one type of game now. And while I do respect what most of the new franchises do and recognize they have an audience, it's resulted in PS not having many options for kids/families, with the only first-party offerings being R&C, Sackboy, and Astro.

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

You know what's weird? A genre of games that could work with this is 3D Platformers!

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

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

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

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

I remember seeing this and thinking "this will flop." I was right

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

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

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.

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

Thank you for the countless hours you put into this video.

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

Loved the eye toy back on the PS2, but I didn't even know this existed. It's also very interesting to know that the move was in development around the same time as the Wii, Nintendo just kind of beat them to it and had motion controls be the main focus, bundled with the console and cheaper than the PS3

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.

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.

Heard about Wonderbook but never saw other than ads. I saw 1 Wonderbook game in my local retro game store and didn't get it as don't have both only Move no Wonderbook so I do wonder how they were the few games that uses it/wasn't sure if it'd be my thing so got Sorcery instead as a good enough magic adventure. If Wonderbook is like EyePet but a book/story/spells then sure.

This was great! Thanks for another interesting video.

What do you mean "Never seen out in the wild"? I saw like, 25 of them down at my local retro store!

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.

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

I've had this video idea for ages I'm glad this is being covered lol (I have two wonderbooks 💀)

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

Wow a wallet commercial thats not Ridge. Didn't see that coming. I personally don't like these kinds of wallets but the ones with the button that slide out are cooler so I'm glad to see a sponsor spot for one of them vs the Ridge that doesn't have that feature.

I had one when i was a kid it was fun. I had the harry potter game and the dino one, wasn't sure but the horrible pet one was there 😂 it was bad because there was never enough light

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

I’m pretty sure I only saw the wonder book just one time, got excited, and then never saw anything about it until now

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.

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

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

We had Book of Spells and it was really good, I didn’t know there were other games for the Wonderbook.

Hearing about Wonderbook here when the video first dropped was such a fun discovery. Fast forward a bit, and i managed to get the full setup and all 4 games for a little less than $100.

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

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

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

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

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

This thing looked so neat.😊

This Is such an Interesting video. Thank you for Sharing. Never heard of this before. Have a like! 🎉

Great video!

I loooove weird deep cuts like this

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

I really wanted this and could never find it, I was really bummed out about it. The card game was disappointing they didn't bring out more. I have it but forgot the name.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

i would really like to hear some insiders from past developers of the technology into its process and its downfall of the forgotten/less used features of the PlayStation

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.

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.

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

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

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).

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

I have this thing, I had eyepet and I loved that game as a kid and then I got the wonder book and I loved it as well, I liked a lot off stuff to do with it

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?"

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.

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.

I feel like I have the faintest, faintest memory of that E3 presentation. A mere echo of an impression.

I remember seeing it, but I never heard of the games so I thought it was something like Sega Pico or something..!

i had the wonderbook with book of spells, it's okay, MAN I WISH I HAD THE WALKING WITH DINOSAURS GAME THAT LOOKS SO COOL

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.

Great video. I hope you weren't suggesting Tokyo Jungle was anything other than fantastic fun though.

I learned about this from Jerma’s old videos

i owned it but i only have the book and are probaly going to trow it away but i hope it comes back its greast to learn things from it i had a game with it that were i learned alot about dinosaures. i hope that they remake it, it was alot of fun learning.