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Sony Rumored To Be Debuting Wiimote-Like Controller At E3
Anenome writes "Previously, we saw a Microsoft patent on a Wiimote-like device, and now rumors say that Sony too has a similar device in the works. This isn't surprising, given how dominant Nintendo's Wii has proved to be in this hardware generation. However, many gaming-geeks continue to lament the move away from plain old button-pressing. What is exciting is the prospect that all three companies may incorporate Johnny Lee-style head-tracking into the next console generation, which achieves a convincing 3D illusion on a regular vid-screen, leaving us just a few steps away from true positional 3D. Both the Microsoft and Sony patents incorporate a camera looking at the user, a required setup for achieving positional head-tracking."
we went from very simple digital joysticks, to analog joysticks, to analog pressure buttons, and now to multi-axis 3D input. i love it. it's what i've been wishing for since i was a kid.
analog steering wheels probably represent the need perfectly. [well, at least in the racing games that lean to the simulation side as opposed to the arcade side....]
i hope all the next-gen continue to get more nuanced inputs!
I can imagine, the next generation of 3D shooting games!!. Almost Virtual Reality.
the problem would be "Almost Virtual Reality Shooting Games" vs "Almost Surreal Shooting Raids"
could your classmates perceive the difference?.
The next logical step would be a controller that you can actually wear on your hand like a large glove. It would be so bad!
I use the Wiimote all the time with Smoothboard, which incidentally is a much MUCH better application than Johny Lee's.
But really, the Wiimote's BT implementation sucks pond water from the bottom: you need to use the BlueSoleil stack, which is $$$ and can be quirky, unless you're really lucky and your Broadcomm or Toshiba stack works as-is, and the Wiimote doesn't autoconnect.
Quite frankly, all the Wiimote needs is a small firmware fix to be perfect. No need for Microsoft to reinvent things, just make it compatible.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
or is even the camera in the diagram staring at the ladies tits
Sure it's one setup, but it's hardly "required" otherwise it wouldn't have been possible to do the same trick with the wii-mote.
The wiimote acts as an infra-red camera (the "sensor bar" is a misnomer, it only has some leds), and IIRC the head-tracking trick involves a wiimote pointing at the user and some leds in the user's head.
Isn't it weird that you can describe a device as "Wiimote-like", but you can still patent it?
Why is it that no-one seems to remember the fabulous TrackIR (http://naturalpoint.com/trackir/) when discussing Johnny Lee's headtracking gizmo? Is there any reason why this tried and true device couldn't or shouldn't be used in this application?
Do you mean like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus
That's the difference between a fan and a fanboy. I love Nintendo, but this is a good thing. You don't get onto a car company for shipping a product that has four wheels on the bottom. This technology will continue to improve and become more intuitive with three companies innovating instead of one.
blu-ray
jury is still out on that one. it's done better than laser disc.
but its still hasn't done better than betamax (sure it killed hddvd..but I remember when video stores were almost 50/50 beta/vhs and beta still lost.
And in my opinion blu-ray's real competition is DVD. Sure bluray has the quality advantage... but then so did betamax... dvd's are cheap, well established, and look equally good on most people's tv's at the viewing distances most people watch tv at.
bluray penetration and marketshare is expanding... but it hasn't reached critical mass yet, and it might well die out, replaced by the next big thing, before it does.
blurays biggest issues, in my mind, is that they aren't backwards compatible, and they aren't better than DVD to anywhere near the same degree that DVD was better than VHS.
I know so many people who find bluray more annoying than anything.. great when it works... but because they only have one bluray player they can only watch it in their living room... it doesn't work in their laptop, their portable dvd player, their dvd player at the cabin, the tv in the bedroom, and they can't bring it over and watch it at a friends house (assuming they don't have bluray), etc.
Woosh! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove#In_popular_culture
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
By impossible I assume you mean impossible to do it very quickly, but even mobile phones can locate faces on their cameras these days so it can't be too bad..
which is totally what she said
... is the added complexity proposed to operate the gaming console. At first one button was fine, then two buttons, six, twelve ... now my wireless Logitech controller has no less than 18 buttons on it, two analog sticks, and a d-pad.
The beautiful thing about the Wii is that while it's not as fast or responsive as simply pressing a button to do X, it helps alleviate the complexity of modern gaming. My dad -- who couldn't figure out how to play golf on the Xbox because of all the different button combinations -- had no problems playing golf on the Wii (he still has a hard time with, and has basically given up on, 3D gaming -- so 3D Zelda and Mario are right out for him).
But now Microsoft and Sony continue to take the elegant design of the Wii controller (relative to the other gaming controllers, mind you) and add a whole bunch of shit to it to make it "better"
Technologically, it might be better, but god damn, they are missing the point: it's not the motion controls that gave Nintendo the damn lead, it's the ease of operation that opened the console up to less than hardcore gamers.
When my dad has to strap on a helmet just to play these games, he's going to junk the console, open his laptop, and play TextTwist into the night ... and I can't blame him.
Sony Laserdisc
Actually, Sony had very little to do with the laserdisc format. They came out with some lame players (actually, any player but a post-digital-audio Pioneer or a high-priced Home Theatre brand player was lame), and they manufactured discs. Oh wait. Carry on.
But as it wasn't a Holy Sony Format, naturally they wouldn't care if their quality was crap.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
So how much money is lost per console versus how much is gained per license and per sale?
If there's any indication that the Playstation 3 is still a money sinkhole for Sony it's their continued refusal to lower the console price, despite being outsold by its last generation counterpart. It means that the PS3 still costs a lot to manufacture, Sony is still taking a loss on the console, and lowering the price would put their charts into all kinds of unpredictable hell.
The declared goal of the Playstation 3 was to shim Blu-Ray into the average consumers home. At 22m units sold worldwide, it has helped Blu-Ray ... but it accounts for almost 90% of all the BD-enabled devices in the home around the world. With DVD being the near-ubiquitous media of choice around the world -- it has market penetration of almost 99% -- BD has a long damn way to go.
Also, the Wii and Xbox 360 continue to outperform the PS3 in the market, with 50m and 30m sold, compared to PS3's 22m.
So, yes, I'd say the Playstation 3 has been a marketing and performance failure. It was supposed to ride the success of the Playstation 2 and usher in the Blu-Ray era. It has not.
It's mainly about accuracy. You can search for fleshy coloured ellipses (it's a little more complicated than this but not by as much as you might think) and the accuracy is pretty good. It's not 100% though. If a camera gets it wrong it's a minor inconvenience and you try again. If the system gets it wrong once every 100 frames there's a graphical glitch every few seconds.
So you use motion estimation. Works really nicely. But turn round and it no longer looks like a face. Move your hand in front of your face and it's possible that it will get confused.
So obviously there's a hybrid approach. Use the pure detection method and add motion estimation as a factor. It's better but getting the weightings right isn't so easy. There are probably better techniques - I will say at this point my knowledge of this sort of thing is a few years out of date - but it's not a trivial problem to solve.
Maybe my math is wrong, but I'm getting about 4.5MB per frame if the signal isn't compressed. Don't know about you but I'd definitely notice a drag like that over my wi-fi connection. Simple solution: Make a spare tin-foil hat and put it over the camera when you aren't playing your playstation.
Sony went from 70% market share in the previous generation to around 20% now. That's what's wrong ;)
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
the word 'wiimote' is just like the word 'fucktard' and 'sheeple'. how can you hate the former but love the latter?
sig? uhh, umm, ok