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Warhawk and The Dualshake Controller
You may recall Warhawk from the Sony conference demo, their flagship 'dualshake' controller product. A few of the news sites have gotten their hands on the game, and have impressions of what it's like to use the PS3 controller with the game. From the Gamespy article: "I was initially very skeptical of how this feature (which looked hastily tacked on to a regular joypad without a rumble) would work, but after a lengthy playtest of WarHawk's 30 percent complete single demo stage, I can safely attest to the excellent maneuverable quality possible from the very first moment you pick up and play. The slight delay at the Sony press conference between Phil Harrison's pivoting, and the on-screen tilting of his rendered joypad meant I was expecting the same problems during my WarHawk piloting. Not so. This works flawlessly, and immediately, and allayed any fears I had that this was a last-minute gimmick designed to tear interest away from the Wii."
...designed to draw your attention away from the Wii. That doesn't mean it isn't well-executed. For all their many flaws, and they certainly are numerous, Sony does actually know its shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, in other words, the Sony gimic worked to tear your interest away from the Wii. Sony must be ecstatic.
Anyone remember the pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2 controller? Anyone remember any game that used them? The only one I recall was Metal Gear Solid 2, and with that game, I only succeeded in screwing up the amount of pressure required, accidently shooting guards I only wanted to hold up. Supposedly some driving games used it, but I don't play driving games, so I can't verify that. Bottom line is that I really didn't notice any games using the pressure sensitive buttons - and even if they did, I wasn't actively using them, instead just pressing the button like I always did.
I can't help but feel that this new "motion sensitive" feature will go the way of the "pressure sensitive" buttons - very few games will bother using them, since they're not really a core feature of the controller. Try as I might, I cannot imagine twisting a PS2 controller around for any length of time. It's just too heavy and too unweildy to continuely wave around. Imagine having to hold your PS2 controller steady, because accidently tipping it might do something unintended. (To be fair, I can't imagine twisting the Wii remote around for any length of time either, but not having held that, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt.)
Just like the pressure sensetive buttons, this whole motion sensitive thing on the PS3 controller feels like a pointless gimic. Apparently they're also trying to use that to distract from the fact that they've removed force feedback from their controllers in response to a patent lawsuit. I dunno about anyone else, but I like having force feedback.
The whole PS3 "DualShake" thing still sounds like a gimic to me, just like the PS2 "DualShock" was essentially a gimic. I'd much rather have force feedback than be required to wave a DualShock controller around in the air. (And, yes, it's been confirmed that the final PS3 controller looks exactly like the PS2 controller - except it's wireless. It's not that boomerang thing.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
doesn't mean it wasn't still just a last minute gimmick and attempt to steal thunder from the Wii. Just means the poor bastards who had to implement it in crunch-time actually got the job done.
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Cue Nintendo-fanboy flames in three, two... aw fuck too late.
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Don't think for a second that Sony didn't do this because of the continuing litigation regarding the Dual Shock vibration. They're losing their case, but to include vibration feedback would incur more litigation, but to ship without some controller gimmick would make for a marketing loss.
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now people like my brother, who think than if they look up into the top of the screen or to the sides, will be even more confused when they try to move around to look and the controlle rdoes some weird stuff... hmm... i can see it now... more screaming and jumping areound because 'the game is cheating'.... oy
Now why would anyone possibly think that?
EG: When did you first learn about [the tilt functionality] controller?
Dylan Jobe: We've really known officially for about a week and a half, and we did the final tuning just a couple of days ago.
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But do they still look like giant half-moon boomerangs? That's the question. The controllers in the early pictures looked amazingly uncomfortable. Flying is nice, but are the controllers actually comfortable?
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The real question here isn't whether or not the Dual-Shake was 'stolen' from Nintendo or whether or not it's just a hastily added feature designed to make up for the potential loss of the Dual-Shock feature in future controllers. The real question is whether or not game developers are actually going to actually take full advantage of this feature when they're not under pressure to help Sony one-up Nintendo. The difference here is that Sony once mocked the 'Wii-mote' and its motion sensing features, only to embrace them once they realized that it actually worked - a purely reactionary move, for better or for worse. Nintendo has been making the Wii's controller the thesis of the entire console, and as we've seen, there are quite a few games already in production that incorporate the motion-sensing features of the controller into the gameplay quite well. (While it might work out for Sony in the end, Nintendo has a massive head-start on them.)
Another interesting thing to note is that if games come out for the Playstation 3 that revolve around the motion-sensing control feature, it's likely that they will also be ported to the Wii - or from it, which ever way it works out. This means increased availability of games, which works out for us gamers, though it's hard to tell which company would come out on top of that one. (Something tells me Nintendo would get the long end of the stick on that one, considering the console is already predicted to be much cheaper, and therefore more available to consumers in terms of cost.) This also means that developers wishing to take advantage of motion-sensing controllers won't be isolated to just one console, should they choose to develop for the Wii and the Playstation 3 at the same time. (And eventually the 360, since there's no way in hell Microsoft would ignore a feature like this considering all of the attention it's getting.) After seeing what the 'Wii-mote' can do, it's easy to see that Nintendo's driving a motion-sensing bandwagon right through the industry. Their console may yet be a revolution - in control schemes, if nothing else.
If this is indeed true, that the tilt and roll and gyroscopic capabilities of the PS3 controler are indeed well implemented and fun to use and yatta yatta yatta, does this not also mean that, because the Nintendo Wii focuses specifically upon these aspects of play, that their controller and console will not only be fun to use, but will perhaps be BETTER?
If Sony's done stole a little bit off Wii for itself, that doesn't suddenly mean Sony > Wii. It just means that Sony will have to work hard to encourage USE of that feature, whereas for Nintendo, it's kind of implied from the start that anyone designing games for the system is free to make use of the motion capabilities.
Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well, but I'm just seeing this as another challenge for Sony. They have to prove that this isn't just an E3 gimmick, and that it somehow makes their games more fun to play than Nintendos.
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Okay wait a second. Let's take a step back and re-read the quote before jumping to conclusions. First, note the word "officially" in the beginning of the sentence. That means that Sony might have come up with this more than a week and a half ago, which is pretty likely. Second, note the use of the word "final" in the last half of the sentence. There is quite a bit you can read into that sentence. Did they start the tuning when they heard about it a week and a half ago? Maybe they unofficially got word 10 months ago and started development then, with final tuning finishing up a few days ago. The point is, the quote says nothing about when Sony decided to do the Dual Shake thing. The rest is just guesses.
Not to mention that most people don't finish fine-tuning features until even hours before something goes live at those conferences. Fine-tuning is possible up until the minute the public is to see it. So let's hold back the accusations that Sony literally woke up out of their bed 2 weeks ago and said, let's add this to our controller! If it really works as well as TFA says, then anyone with any sense of how product development works knows it had to be at least 6 months ago that they dreamed this up.
Just because the game developers found out about the motion sensing functionality within the last few weeks doesn't mean it was "hastily tacked on." To me, "hastily tacked on" means that the decision to add the feature came late in development and was then added at the last minute.
...with that said, it definitely seems like they stole the idea from Nintendo and wanted to take the hype away from the Wii.
How long have we known about Nintendo's controllers? It was debuted September 15, 2005. So if Sony started working on this technology as soon as Nintendo announced the controller, they would have been working on it for over 7 months before releasing it to developers. They could have waited a while to start working on it, but from all the praise it got at E3 in Japan, I would think they would have started research right away, assuming that they weren't already working on such a feature. The recent release of the technology to developers doesn't seem like something that was "hastily tacked on", but more like something that took a while to develop and perfect before it could be implemented.
I'd say that depends on whether or not the version that's been demo'd is the final version. There's no reason it couldn't have been hacked onto an existing dual shock controller. Furthermore, since it isn't necessary to make more space to add an accelerometer or two and a small microcontroller to support it in the final design (I've seen the boards in the dual shock and dual shock 2 controllers, there's space) the fact that the vibration is removed could have just indicated that it's a hack job done just so they could show it off quickly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Microsoft had a positional controller loooooong before Nintendo, or Sony. They came out with a special edition of the Sidewinder that offered many of the same features as these "next gen" controllers. I believe it was about 1997 or 98 when it was available (it was discontinued after about a year).
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Nintendo Power Glove and Nintendo U-Force (both 1989).
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
I can't help but feel that this new "motion sensitive" feature will go the way of the "pressure sensitive" buttons - very few games will bother using them, since they're not really a core feature of the controller. Try as I might, I cannot imagine twisting a PS2 controller around for any length of time. It's just too heavy and too unweildy to continuely wave around. Imagine having to hold your PS2 controller steady, because accidently tipping it might do something unintended. (To be fair, I can't imagine twisting the Wii remote around for any length of time either, but not having held that, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt.)
I can see one potential use, and if anyone gets it right, I think it will take the world by storm. I think the orientation sensor should be used to control the camera in platformers. Many people complain about squirelly cameras in 3D platformers, as do I. I often find myself hankering after the 2D platformers I played on my Amiga, for just this reason.
Anyway, if the tilt sensor just sets the camera angle relative to the default "auto camera" position, I could see this being really useful. It could become a really intuitive unconscious way of controlling the camera in realtime.
Oh, the PS3 controller is a lot lighter than the PS2 controller, BTW.
-Nurf
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Onimusha 2 had support for pressure-sensitive buttons.
If you press R1, you target an enemy.
If you press R1 hard, you also charge up your weapon.
It was kind of awkward.
:(){
The obvious difference here is that we might actually have games that use this functionality :P
Le Stick for the Atari 2600.
(Ok it's not exactly the same thing hehe, but I like to say "Le Stick" as in "grip Le Stick with my Power Glove")
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To be fair, Microsoft's controller (and Sony's new one) used a gyroscope/accelerometer combination to track movement. Nintendo is using RF direction finding to determine the exact position of the controller in space.
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Your wrong. The Nintendo controlelr uses the gyro for the pointing ,accelerometer for tilting and the rf for the rest of the positioning stuff.
It was called the SideWinder Freestyle. I used it, and I hated it. IIRC, it only had roll & pitch, but no yaw. It had massive sensitivity issues, and the ergonomics just weren't there, either.
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Who cares, really. This console is, at minimum, 500 dollars. (100 dollars for a 40 GB upgrade? What the--) ...
Five hundred dollars. Cash.
Do you even know what a gyroscope and accelerometer are? Using an accelerometer for tilting would make no sense at all, considering how hard it would be to accurately measure acceleration when a controller's being tilted around and arbitrary point. And a gyroscope for "pointing"? That doesn't even begin to make sense.
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From the "article":
It took 15 seconds for me to change my jaded mind from slightly mocking to kool-aid drinking. I've experienced the way PS3 games control, and it's epoch-making.
haha. Epoch-making. You've got to be kidding me. I find it hard to take anything else this guy says seriously.
Maybe they unofficially got word 10 months ago and started development then
Is that when Nintendo unveiled the Revolution controller? If so, you're probably right.
For those who love to rag on Sony, note that the gyro controller isn't a new idea. Did Pelican see what Nintendo was going to do with the Wii in '06 and come up with this? http://www.bakersman.com/projects/demo_reel/TiltPa ck_Lo.html
I'll admit that the Wii controller helped Sony along, but geez people. Go hump a GameCube or something!
There is, however, an accelerometer in the other half of the nunchuck-style setup. It's been quoted as used in madden to do footbally-stuff I don't understand.
What I really want to know is where they fit the Interocitor.
the fact that the vibration is removed could have just indicated that it's a hack job
I think the patent trouble is the more likely explaination, after all they have to license it either from Immersion (who are still pissed off because of what Sony did) or Nintendo (fat chance).
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... to steal Nintendo's thunder. The fact that it is a good idea doesn't take away from the fact that Sony stole the idea because they are creatively bankrupt.
That said, you're point is undeniable that they were mostly a novelty, as the tilt sensor likely will be. The carpal tunnel lawsuits alone will probably make Sony wish they'd paid out the royalties for rumble, which will be sorely missed.
I'm sorry, but feeling your gun fire, engine rev, and the dying heartbeat of your opponent are not something I'm interested in giving up just because Sony's too cheap or too busy trying not to lose mindshare to put in the controllers that come with their $600 console.