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TrueMotion Game Controller a Step Up From Wii Remote
Harry McCracken writes "One of my top picks at the Consumer Electronics Show was Sixense's TrueMotion, a game-controller technology that resembles the Wii's remote, but uses an electromagnetic field to provide far more precision — it knows the exact location of the controller in 3D space and which way you're pointing it. (The Wiimote only knows which direction you're moving the controller.) TrueMotion-based remotes are due by Christmas, bundled with a PC game for under $100."
For me at least, if PC gaming is dead, then windows is dead.
OSX and Linux are more than adequate for my Internet and business applications.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Console gaming will never be more advanced then computer gaming and it shouldnt be.
Console gaming IS more advanced then computer gaming for the sheer ability to just plain work as advertised.
How many console games require a new graphic card, new processor, more memory, DirectX/drivers updates or OS upgrades?
You plug it in, turn it on, drop in the CD/DVD/cartridge and it works.
No half hour installations, needles restarts, patches that take several hours to download and install...
For actual gameplay - consoles have been kicking PC's ass for years now.
But, if you find fiddling around your PC, spending insane amounts of money on hardware upgrades and kicking it once in a while JUST SO YOU COULD PLAY A GAME a part of the experience - well good luck with that.
Only game niches where PC still keeps the crowd entertained with greater efficiency are RTS, FPS and MMORPG games.
For an idiotic reason that console makers refuse to allow onto their consoles games that require plugging in a mouse into their consoles AND comparatively high price for multiplayer gaming.
The second reason being that you need the console+game+online/network access&support+TV screen for each player.
And while each member of the household can validate the need for a personal computer - it is not so with a personal TV and gaming console.
So there tends to be more PCs per household member than consoles, which gives multiplayer gaming on a PC a lower minimum requirement threshold.
Hopefully, with new console's ability to go online something will also move up from the lower regions of the body to the heads of console and console games makers and we will finally enter the era of games that you can JUST PLAY.
Not install, service, update, patch and set up more than you actually play the game.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Perhaps I'm overly cynical of input technologies, but my take from the movie is that this is a *disaster*.
Start with the best configuration the company could manage for the demo, with in-house software, and an experienced user. The system is still laggy and periodically jerky. It has the same lack of feedback as the Wiimote, so you need similarly simple gestures to make it usable. Their one advantage is that the position sensor should be orientation-independent, whereas the Wiimote's camera needs to see the sensor bar.
If memory serves (and it often doesn't) the two major problems with EMF position sensing in AR are range and interference. Range should be solvable for a local input device. Interference worries me. With a near-optical system, interference sources are obvious: if your Wiimote has problems, look around for the strong light source.
Of course the blog-based press releases do not bother communicating actual benefits or limitations of the technology, beyond "ooh, shiny!" and "ooh, revolutionary!".
At my former job I used to create softwar for Polhemus sensors, which apparently use the same principle. Let me tell you that the wiimote is nothing close to these devices. The Wiimote really looked underwhelming : orientation is approximative, aiming is impossible, lag is big. Here is something using such sensors. The games are not on par top what Nintendo can produce, but try to accurately position a lightsaber in the hands of someone with the wiimote (everything is realtime in the video)
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
That statement is accruate.
The wiimote knows that direction it is moving in wiimote space, but not world space. I can prove it to you. Face north, hold the wiimote directly out in front of you with the A button facing up, and move it horizontally to the right. The force will push the accelerometer x-axis to the left, so the wiimote knows it is moving right. Now turn your body 90 degrees so you are facing east. Move the wiimote again to the right. Just like before the wiimote knows it is moving to the right. However, relative to the room you are standing in, you just moved the wiimote in two completely different directions. The wiimote doesn't know that.
Only game niches where PC still keeps the crowd entertained with greater efficiency are RTS, FPS and MMORPG games.
And like nobody plays those!
Only game niches where consoles beat PCs is local multiplayer games sitting in the couch and eventually RPGs.