Slashdot Mirror
More Wii-mote Info
Psykechan writes "IGN has revealed some more info about Nintendo's Wii remote controller. Paraphrasing from the official Developer documentation, the controller will communicate with the console using Bluetooth and will last up to 60 hours on two AA (R6/UM3) batteries using only accelerometer functionality or 30 hours using precision aim functionality via the sensor bar. There's also details on memory, LEDs, possible camera functionality, and environmental distractions." From the article: "Light sources from fluorescent and halogen lamps, plastic, mirrors and more may occasionally interfere with the pointer, based on official documentation. To eliminate this interference, the pointer must identify the sensor bar and mark its two coordinates. When pointing with the Wii-mote, the unit is actually interacting with the sensor bar, which then translates data to the television, in effect simulating a direct aim to the television."
...it's not rechargable?
I wonder how well it will handle distances. Moving the wii-mote from say 15 feet from the TV would be different from moving it 3 feet away.
I just can't visualize or imagine what puprose this will have. Anyone have any ideas?
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
After seeing the piece of work that is the DS lite, I figured Nintendo would have similar recharge functionality for the remotes. I have similar issue with my wireless mice and I find it rediculous... sure, lithium-ion batteries are expensive, but for a $250 machine anyway...
I am pretty surprised the batteries in the wiimote are standard AA's and apparently not rechargeable. It seems to go against their use if LI in the recent gameboys. :-|
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
I read this the other day. Most of it was known before. That said, the IGN writer needs a clue.
I wonder what the memory will be for. I can't think of any uses, unless it is used for calibration in which case it doesn't matter that much. That said, using non-volatile memory (which did not need to be in quotes, and is probably flash) to store sound clips seems rather pointless and a waste of limited write cycles.
But wait, there's more!
I'M ruling it out. That's like saying a mouse with a ball and a 200 PPI resolution could be used as a scanner. To put a live mega-pixel video sensor on the front of the Wiimote just to analyze every image to figure out which way the thing was pointing would be one of the most expensive, slow, battery draining, and stupid ways to accomplish that goal imaginable.
We'll find out more during Tokyo Game Show on Sept 22nd. In the mean time, if you are going to speculate in an article about something, get some kind of engineer to take a glance at your article first so you don't look too wrong.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
That makes me wonder... how will the sensor determine the bounds of the TV that the remote is aiming at? Will it look up somehow to see where light is emiting from the TV somehow? Or will there be general assumptions about the size and aspect ratio of the screen?
Perhaps there will be a calibration on setting the system up... but they have to expect either the TV or the sensor to be moved occasionally. Any manual calibration can be expected to suffer from accuracy problems, I'd expect - especially if game makers somehow assume a screen aspect ratio when making their games. Games with relativistic controls wouldn't be so bad... but anything with precision involved would start to feel sloppy when anything changed.
I hope the relationship between screen and controller are more dynamic and automatic than just sensing the remote. Regardless, I imagine I can quickly get used to whatever it is, and the game makers will compensate as needed - I'd just like it to be as close to a precise 3-d mouse as possible without having to wave the controller too out of proportion to the actual screen.
Ryan Fenton
The bit in the article about the camera is pretty idiotic. IGN is completely misunderstanding the information they've got. It can read relative position on the screen to a resolution that is roughly a megapixel. Somehow they read this as a potential camera. It's not. It's no more a camera than your computer mouse is.
http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/eagleeyes/cameramou se/
-
Sig for sale:
Must not affect already bad karma rating.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Are you serious?!?!
Look, here's the options you typically have with batteries in consumer products:
1. Batteries are not user accessible. When batteries lose their ability to hold a charge, you replace the wiimote. Cost to you: $60
2. Proprietary rechargables. Really just AAs or AAAs, but inside a special case so that you have to buy them from the manufacturer. Cost to you: $35
3. User replaceable batteries of a standard size. You buy your own NiMhs. Cost to you: $6.99
You're COMPLAINING about this?
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360quickc hargekit/default.htm
The play and charge doesn't really excite me. I use it, but when it runs down, I just grab my other controller with 2 AAs in it while the play and charge charges from my iPod USB power supply.
The play and charge has two major flaws:
1. If you charge your controller off your 360 while the 360 is "off", the 360 isn't really off, it is taking over 80W of power. It basically just turns off the video out. It gets hot and wastes a lot of power.
2. If you charge your controller off your 360 while the 360 is on, you must use that controller as player 1. That is, if any controller is attached by the play n charge kit to the 360, it becomes controller 1. If you turn it off (perhaps to make another controller #1), it just turns right back on and becomes #1 again. This sucks. This forces you to use the tethered controller to play, even if you have another that is charged. That is, unless you want to wait until your 360 is "off" to charge, in which case you end up at #1 again.
That's why I have to plug my controller into my iPod power supply (via the play n charge cable) to charge it. Weak.
Still, all in all it is a good controller, Sony will have trouble matching it with their PS3 controller.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
If I was Nintendo, I'd have two transmitters of some sort ship with the Wii that would be used to determine the bounds of the television. Place one on one corner of the TV just outside the screen, place the other on the opposite corner; that way you can draw right angles at those points and create a parallelogram containing the screen. It would be a pain and the transmitters would get lost eventually, but it would be effective.
Alternatively, I imagine they could alter the display through the video chip or somehow so it creates a grid that the optical device can use. I'm not sure how one might accomplish that though, especially without it becoming visible.
Then we can see if it's good or gimick - a neat controller design or a nintendo power glove.
Until then, you can go back to bashing the PS3 as usual.
Thought I'd pipe in again, judging from the amount of memory, it's probably an EEPROM chip rather than flash. This might indicate that they're actually planning on just physcially keeping a list of savegames (along witht their location, but the the files themselves, just an index) on the remote itself, probably along with varios configuration data or whatever..
/. complaints on NOT having expensive proprietary batteries?
Buy whatever AA you want.
in 5 years buy some super capacitor AA...(joke)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
They talk about 6kb of NVM as if it's going to have some super features. um HELLO!??? I don't have that much expirence with embedded systems: but I know the 6kb will be used to store base id and a few other internal settings that nobody even needs to know bout. Sounds pretty "exciting" to me!!!
Fewer people own Charging kits for proprietary battery packs (XBox 360). Personally, I have 2 chargers and a bunch of NIMH AA's, since I have a digital camera (Canon A620) and a couple other devices which use them. And it's $5 cheaper to buy a NIMH charger with two sets of batteries.
I really hate having a proprietary battery cartridge when a few generic rechargeable AAs could have done the job just as well, and let me not pay the hefty premium for the few cents of cheap plastic that they used to bundle them together with. Plus, with standard-size batteries, you have the option of using regular alkalines in a pinch if you really want to -- if you use a proprietary pack and it runs out, you're SOL until it recharges.
The only excuses for using proprietary batteries at all are if the form factor is such that a standard-shaped (AA/LR6 NiMH) won't fit, or the increased energy density of a Li-ion is required.
The best combination is to use standard-sized, replaceable cells and then have an external charging port so that the batteries can be charged without removing them from the device. Unfortunately, few manufacturers of consumer products do this because of the safety features you need to put on the charger in order to keep it from trying to charge the alkalines that people will inevitably put in there, even if you warn them not to.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
EA? Just guessing :-)
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
The "sensor bar" sounds more like a "beacon bar". I'm guessing that it has two flashing infrared LEDs, one at each end (or maybe more, they might be lying). Each LED flashes in a different pattern (or is maybe a cluster of LEDs in a different pattern, a "barcode" maybe).
The remote has a megapixel monochrome IR CCD in it. This picks up the position of the LEDs in the "sensor bar". After calibration, the position and inclination of the lights in the image can be used to calculate the vector of your aim.
This is a nice, elegant way of doing it. It's akin to the existing way that TV-aiming devices work (lightguns), except....
This is a serious improvement on lightgun technologies. You can play Zelda without seeing unrealistic muzzle flash when shooting a bow. It should work with ANY display technology, not just scanning-raster, as long as it doesn't get too large (and even then, you should be able to move the "beacon" bar closer to you to enable larger screens with equal angular accuracy). The horizontal accuracy should be much better. And I'll wager it improves the battery life, because the remote doesn't constantly have to emit radiation at the sensor bar, it just has to capture an image.
Bah, tried to do an ascii art of how I think it works, but the lamo-filter won't let it past.
http://barcodebattler.co.uk/faq.php
- I can buy a cheap extra set of rechargeable batteries.
- I can simply insert a new set of fresh batteries without having to wait for them to charge.
- I don't depend on some proprietary Nintendo battery pack.
- I can use a set of plain Duracells, if I forgot to recharge.
Oh, I love standards. We should use it a lot more!
Sega's Dreamcast had VMU's for each cotnroller which *did* remember your favourite birthday, blood type, favourite colour etc. which essentially qualifies them as the only really customiseable cotnroller.
I have been to China and have been able to buy myself a portable VCD player, that would accept regular rechargable batteries. You could then slide a switch on the back to indicate that there are rechargab;e batteries in there and it would recharge them when plugged in. I am sure that this solution could be applied to the Wii-remote.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
From TFA:
"Interestingly, according to documentation the Wii-mote is able to act as something of an eye, measuring coordinates between 0-1023 on the X axis and 0-767 on the Y axis, which means that it is more or less seeing a megapixel image. Whether or not this data can be interpreted into visual information remains unknown, but we're not ruling out the possibility that the pointer could sub as a camera."
It's not a cameara. The res of HD is 1024x768, so of course the Wii-mote is going to measure coordinates of the same size. All this is saying is that the Wii-mote has per-pixel accuracy. Saying it may be a camera is one of the biggest stretches I've ever seen.
I know Nintendo is going for online functionality this time around, but they shouldn't be REQUIRING it. How many people have WiFi setup in their house? I know I do, but none of my friends do, quite a few of them don't even have internet. Remember, there are many people who buy consoles because they don't have computers. It's a good move for Nintendo to get into online play, but from every indication I've seen, they neither have the push or the technology to require it. They haven't bothed making it easy, and versitile enough for EVERY gamer to do. Having an online personal info account would pretty much require all users to be internet ready, and screw anyone who's not. This doesn't seem to fit with Nintendo's overall strategy. I haven't even heard whether this thing can use ethernet, all I've heard about is the WiFi. This is going to be a feature for a very small percentage of players. So no, I highly doubt that they'll have an online personal info account like the one you describe.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
People have been suggesting a calibration setup system similar to that of the DS: point at a bunch of cross hairs (or dots) on the screen and pulling the trigger. There's a problem with this, though. The DS calibration is made easy because you're actually touching the dot you're having to calibrate with, while you're not guarenteed precision while aiming at a TV 10ft. away. So, how about this? Just for calibration, enlist the old lightgun system of having the screen change to a pattern of colors, maybe a 2-dimensional gradient across the screen, with a series of deviding lines. All the system has to do is tell the user to user to wave the controller around the screen for a second or two, and then can use the scanning data to figure out where PRECISELY the TV is in proximity to the Wiimote. Additionally, any load screens (of which Nintendo is good at keeping to a minimum), can flash up another calibration screen every so often, to keep the system in check. So, I see absolutely no reason for a clunky point and shoot calibration system.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
As I understand the problem with lightguns was that they worked only with CRT TVs, depending on vertical/horizontal scanning. Other types flashed a white square instead of each target once you pressed the trigger. The main problem is that lightguns depended on stuff shown on the screen (and not like the screen-independent Wii). Wii-mote communicates only with the receiver on top of the screen (making it independent of the screen type and avoiding flashing patterns). It doesn't actually see what's on the screen.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightgun
I have a Kill-A-Watt for two years now. I measured the power at the wall socket. Additionally, I was tipped off to the problem by seeing my temperature controlled fan for my 360 was still on even though the 360 was "off".
I do not have overheating issues. The 360 cools itself fine (if not a bit loudly) as long as you don't put it in an enclosed space. Since it is so loud, I had to put it in an enclosed space and thus I had to find a way to ventilate that space. I do not feel the 360 gets hotter than I expect from a device that has a 180W power brick (which I put outside the enclosed space).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Here's the problem better described. If you turn off all controllers attached to the 360, it will automatically log on any attached wired controller as player 1.
So, let's say I'm playing along solo, and my controller runs low. I decide to attach the play n charge kit to charge it while I use my other controller to play.
So, I first turn off my current controller. Whoops, it turned it back on as player 1 without giving me a chance to set the other controller as player 1. Okay, let's try it the other way, let me turn on the other controller first, then turn the current controller on. I turn on the 2nd controller, and it becomes player 2. Now I turn off the current controller. Whoops, now I have only on controller on, but it's not player 1.
Perhaps what you did is turn on a wireless controller first (getting it P1) and then plug in the 2nd controller (getting it P2)?
I dunno. Anyway, I sure couldn't figure it out.
It does seem like they could fix it in a software update. Maybe they did. I last tried this in February (dearth of good games, didn't turn my 360 on again until GRAW came out).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Cos after all that wii-mote waving my wrist will be too tired!
Then why all this stuff about it being like an "eye" and being able to scan the television set? From what it sounds like, the bar on the top of TV simply acts as a relitave locator, to detect it's motion and position, but that the "eye" on the front of it scans it's field of vision, ie: the TV. The difference I'm proposing is NOT a flash, like with a light gun, but a constant picture (which would work fine on any type of TV).
I think people, including myself, are still confused on what this thing actually does. We're hearing that it has an accellerometer, we're hearing that it has a locator beacon bar (that sits on the TV), and we hear that it has a light sensor on the front of the Wiimote. So, is there any calibration, at all, that needs to be done? Maybe I'm missing something.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
My theory from day one? The Wii-mote *should* have memory, to store the equivalent of your DS Wi-Fi Connection ID. That way, you visit your friend, who also has a Wii, but you bring your own controller, bringing over your scores, records, preferences, and (in Smash Bros.,) your automated handicaps. You don't need to store everything, either, just the ID, which would pull down the relevant info from WiiConnect.
Now, since it turns out that the controller does have the memory, I can only hope that my guess was right. (Mind you, the BT address would also be good enough, but maybe the extra space would also be used for caching some of the profile data.)
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
In his living room along with the Wii? (it's a strange concept, I know)
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
It's obviously got a camera builtin! Just look at it. The camera is behind the internal speaker. You can trade speaker pictures with all your friends online. Their whole online community is based off this concept. As an aside, I hear those pictures can be used for currency in the new Animal Crossing game.....
If my controller dies during play, I cannot use a 2nd controller while that one charges off the Xbox 360.
I can adapt all I want and that can't be made to work.
It's not the end of the world, but it's a serious problem.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95