Motorola, Nintendo, & Sony Towards Wireless Gaming

WeekendKruzr writes "CommsDesign is running an article about how Motorola has partnered with Sony and Nintendo to work on bringing 2.4Ghz wireless LAN tech to the console gaming community. They're calling it an "isochronous network" and it is "intended for streaming, near-real-time traffic..." with production scheduled for later this year."

Comments

More evidence

[stevenbee]

IMHO this is just further proof that gaming is the Prime Evolutionary Factor in all technology. ; -)

Super unorganized LAN part

[JojoCoco]

This could lead to LAN party type events in which you get the speed of LAN, but can still sit at home challenging all of your neighbors, I want this.

In other news, MS announces extensions

[capt.Hij]

Motorola and Nintendo have demonstrated the isochronous gaming LAN privately at gaming conferences over the last quarter. The RF subsystems will be ready for volume production in the second half of this year, Burgess said.

In other news, Microsoft has announced extensions tothe protocal for use in their XBox. The new extensions are not compatible but according to MS sources offer better value to the consumer.

Another excuse for a proprietary standard

[mactari]

From the article:
[But the multiuser gaming market required a very low latency network where traditional packet-collision problems precluded use of 802.11, [[the corporate vice president of Motorola]] said.]

Is TCP-like packet checking inherent in 802.11 (versus "UDP-like")? If not (and even if so -- I wonder what kinds of savings we're talking about), this sounds like a pretty sorry excuse for coming up with a new standard, and one that sounds like it might be closed.

I've played Quake online with a cable modem via 802.11b and the pings weren't too shabby at all! I wish Motorola would spend more time making something new than tweaking something old for profit -- they make great products and traditionally provide great support, but I'm not so impressed at first glance here.

Re:Sony and Nintendo

[Storm Damage]

Well, they are both contributing input to Motorola on this development, but the article states nothing of any alliance between the two companies, or even any intent to introduce cross-platform networking compatibility to their systems. From the vagueness of the technical descriptions in the article this might end up being a feature in the next-gen consoles, but whether that means you'll be able to play Quake 4 on your PS3 versus your buddy across the street on his Nintendo is not at all clear yet.

GBA

[Apreche]

The GBA is what needs wireless gaming. Imagine sitting in your car on a road trip playing GBA games against other players in their cars on the other side of the country. Now Imagine a FF6 style MMORPG, that you carry around with you. Yeah, the MMORPG would eat your soul, BUT at least people wouldn't be sitting cooped up in their house playing everquest, they would walk around, go places, and just play in the meantime.

Boss: Joe do something blah blah blah
Joe: I gotta beat this dragon first hold on.

Re:Don't play nice together.....

[SanLouBlues]

Motorola Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector will use a proprietary frequency-hopping scheme
. . . from the very first sentence in the article.

Get the wired network working first???

[thryllkill]

Maybe it is just me, but maybe Sony should be worried about getting a good bit of the PS2 user base to embraced the wired network model first. Historically console video game networks haven't exactly succeeded. I'm sure with the ammount of money they are throwing at it it will do better than Sega's middle 90's attempts, but still with the American market's resistance to console gaming peripherals is this such a smart idea?