Did THQ CEO spill the beans on Sony’s PlayStation Arc name?

Sony is most certainly not going to call its new wand-like game control device a “Sony Motion Controller.” That has been the placeholder name since the company talked about it at the E3 trade show last summer.

The device, which lets gamers control a game using gestures with a high degree of accuracy, will reportedly be called the PlayStation Arc. Sony tipped its hand by registering the web domain, playstationarc.com. And today, THQ chief executive let slip the name Arc several times during the company’s earnings call.

Analysts asked if THQ was going to make games that utilize the new Sony controller for the PlayStation 3. Sony’s job is to design controllers and consoles that are attractive to third-party publishers such as THQ, which can choose which game platforms it supports.

The device went by the code name Gem, which was also leaked by a loose-lipped chief executive, John Riccitiello of Electronic Arts. It will debut this fall. Now if only Microsoft could give a real name to its code-named Project Natal, a gesture-control system that also arrives this fall.

[photo credit: VG247]

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.