Sony, Nintendo, id Lauded With Emmys

Nintendo, Sony, and id Software have all been given Emmy awards for technology-related contributions to gaming and entertainment. Nintendo's Wiimote, obviously, garnered an Emmy for Peripheral Development and Technoogical Impact of Video Game Controllers, while id collectively received two awards. John Carmack was given The Pioneering Development Work in 3D Game Engines award, and id as a whole received an accolade for Quake's rendering technology. As reader NexusTw1n points out, though, there was something odd about Sony's award. "On Monday, Sony claimed their revolutionary SIXAXIS controller had been honoured with an Emmy , leaving many wondering why the Wiimote had been ignored. Yesterday, that press release was clarified, with a statement making it clear the award was actually for the PS2 Dual Shock controller, rather than the new PS3 model."

Comments

Quake, as in the original Quake?

[Chris Burke]

While it would be rather late to give an award, I do think Quake would be the most deserving of an award for graphics achievment certainly since and maybe before. Fully 3D environments with arbitrary geometry -- fairly complex geometry at that -- on hardware that had no business being able to render such a thing was quite an achievement. Throw on the lightmaps and you've got something even more impressive. Nothing looked like Quake at the time, and everything since is more detailed geometry, higher detailed textures, and better lighting/texture shader effects. Yay Quake! Of course the game itself wasn't that great, setting the precedent for all future iD games. :)

I particularly liked how they got good performance out of the game by requiring hours and hours of pre-processing on the maps to create visibility trees. There were even servers you could submit your maps to that would then run vis on them so hobbyists could save some time.

Re:Quake, as in the original Quake?

[jackbird]

16 Player deathmatch over TCP/IP, with players able to join and leave at any time, vs. 4 player deathmatch over LAN (or incredibly painful middleware like KALI) everyone has to join at the same time. Add in threewave CTF, Quakeworld, and Team Fortress for giggles, too (threewave didnt' even require the clients to download a mod).

Quake wasn't just about the graphics, it was about the multiplayer gameplay. I agree that the single-player version felt like a tech demo, but then again, so has every id game since.

Re:Stop Digging

[Chris Burke]

What made the dual shock so appealing to people though? I always found it to be a bit uncomfortable...

Dual analogs, as far as I can guess. That was the main thing it brought to the table, oh and maybe having rumble built in rather than an add-on. The N64 controller made analog control sticks the new standard in consoles, so Sony decided to include not one but two. The reason I've always found it uncomfortable is because since Sony wasn't certain that analog was going to take over -- and not to mess up existing games which used the D-pad -- they put the left analog stick down and to the right so it requires flexing the thumb just to touch the stick. Okay, that was fine for the PS1, but the bastards didn't move it for the PS2 or PS3, while every other controller swapped the dual shock's d-pad/left analog position so that the control you used 99% of the time -- the analog -- was in the most comfortable, natural position.

It's not the worst controller ever, and dual analog sticks was a good improvement, but I agree it isn't that spectacular.