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Sony Unveils PS3 Motion Controller
Sony confirmed rumors at E3 yesterday by debuting their take on a motion-based input device, set to be released for use with the PS3 in the spring of 2010. The BBC has some entertaining video of the demonstration. "A sensor sits on top of the TV and detects the position, distance and movement of two controllers held in a user's hand. The device can not only measure where the controllers are in relation to each other, but also how close they are to the sensor, meaning you can create true 3D movement within a game. ... During the demonstration, the developers showed what the Sony PlayStation Controller was capable of, enabling users to wield weapons, fire a bow and arrow, write on screen and manipulate objects in a virtual environment. 'One thing that is really difficult to do in a virtual world is drawing,' said Mr Marks. 'And in particular, writing requires extreme precision. [The controller can be measured] to sub-millimetre accuracy.'"
Not because they're a terrible idea.... Mostly because they're all patented. If one vendor's system "wins", we all lose.
Without competition, there are no price wars.. There's no innovation.. You're lucky if there are even incremental upgrades.
Patents don't prevent competition. You're confused.
Unfair licensing practises prevent competition.
Patenting actual hardware device innovations shouldn't be up for debate, its almost always a good thing for innovation. The problem is not licensing patents to competitors at fair rates.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It's sad that Nintendo pioneered it - and moreso because the Wiimote is such a mediocre solution.
Seriously, the more I played Wii Sports Golf and Wii Sports Tennis, the more I knew they'd screwed up. It works well enough for "big" movements - basic tennis swing, big golf swing, bat swing, etc - but for the "fine" motions, such as imparting "spin" to the tennis ball or trying to make a putt, the controller is Simply. Not. Sensitive. Enough.
As the tech matures, it'll get better - but Big N's already, by producing an "add-on" sensor to tweak the sensitivity, admitting their initial setup wasn't good enough.
Am I the only one who was glad that "waggle" games were segmented to the Wii? Don't get me wrong, the games on wii that use waggle well are fun games and all, but for every game that uses it well, there are 50 that abuse it/don't understand it.
Mouse and keyboard will STILL be better and more accurate for FPS games, and dual analogue sticks will still be better for platformers. I can see these controllers being pretty good for DS type games, using your TV like a touchscreen, even a 3d touchscreen (some sort of 3d maze game, where you have to drag a ball through a 3d maze). Otherwise, I still prefer existing control options...
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Good enough by what standards? Mate, they rule the market. What more could they have wanted from a box that actually rakes in cash instead of costing the company hard $?
How many years is the Wii old now? And only now do Sony and Microsoft emerge with their own 'innovative' controller technology. How many billions of dollars is Nintendo ahead of them at this point?
Be glad. If anything, this will push Nintendo to come up with something even better. That can only be good for us gamers, right?
Both systems need accelerometers + gyros to sense the controller rotation (X & Y absolute, Z relative).
The Wii uses a camera on the remote and targets in the sensor bar to detect position and Z-rotation (absolute).
The PS3 thingy uses a camera on the TV and a target on the controller to detect position. I don't know how it detects Z-rotation (absolute); maybe it uses a magnetometer?
The PS3 can track position better because the Eye can see the controller most of the time. The Wii tracks better when the controller is pointed at the screen.
The graphics are killer. The AI has me pinned down. The story is immersive. If only I could freehand draw some genitalia on the wall this game would be perfect.
The player has to inject the obligatory rootkit implant into their body upon first use.
Yes, Nintendo's patent on the Wii Remote stopped Sony from releasing a wand-shaped motion controller after all.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Because I remember Sony dissing the Wii controller every which way when Nintendo presented it.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I'm not confused. Let me fix your comment.
No sane console vendor would license a patented killer feature to the competition at any price.
I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be able to patent this stuff. It wasn't an anti-patent rant... It's more of a lament of where gameplay innovation has gone to. Novel input methods aren't born in the arcade and then licensed for home use anymore. They're cooked up by the console makers as a bludgeon to kill off competition.
Wow, you actually used the "I could care less" phrase correctly. You actually care enough about motion controllers to gripe about the Wii remote, so yes you're right. You could care less.
They're cooked up by the console makers as a bludgeon to kill off competition.
Isn't trying to beat their competition precisely what corporations should be doing? This isn't a special olympics race where everyone ends up winning regardless of how you badly you do.
Yep. The PowerGlove.
Microsoft and Sony's new technologies are just appearing, halfway through the product life cycle. This means they'll be, what, 3 good games using this hardware. Just look at headsets. Sony didn't include one and so many games don't support such a fundamentally important piece of online play. This'll wind up in the dumpster next to the Playstation Eye and other such technologies.
I am starting to find that there is some sort of implied shame for most people in liking what Nintendo does. I hear the "it's a kids toy", like somehow a game/system that kids can play can't be any fun for adults. I know quite a few people I had to drag, kicking and screaming, to play a game on the Wii with me. They almost ALWAYS enjoy themselves. But more often than not, they flat out REFUSE to admit they enjoyed themselves and start bitching about the controller shape or the shell color or just about anything to convince themselves that they hate the system.
Same thing happens with Flash games, but at least there I can see it as a hate for the Flash platform bleeding into the objectionability. As for Wii hate, I have no idea where it comes from.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
drawing with the wii controller is hard not because of accuracy but cos of the resolution, target size (i.e small TV) and lack of friction for stability like you'd get with paper.
His point stands on its own merits. "Good enough for making accurate movement calculations for new games" would be a good extension of the sentence though.
Nintendo's making a better motion controller. If they're making one, there's a perceived need for one. That's all.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
- Yes Wii can !
It doesn't feel natural to me to use a mouse to control and fire a firearm, or a sword and besides, I sit at a chair and push a mouse around all day at work (and sometimes longer) --- it's not something I want to do for leisure.
The Wii allows for interesting, natural interfaces which minimize button mashing and allow for more immersion, which for me equates to fun.
Better still, one can use various gun shells to improve the verisimilitude --- I've even been making Wii Zapper-like pistols in my wood shop and handing them out to co-workers along w/ used copies of Link's Crossbow Training so that we can all compete for high scores.
Do yourself a favour, open your mind, get your keister out of your chair, grab a Wii Zapper or other gun shell (the Nyko Perfect Shot Pistol is excellent if you have large hands) and try an FPS on a WII, e.g.:
- ranger levels in _Link's Crossbow Training_
- Quantum of Solace --- this game is quite a bit of fun, almost as good as Goldeneye
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- Medal of Honor
- Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
- House of the Dead: Overkill
Unfortunately Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition doesn't work well w/ a standard gun shell, though GameStop makes a 2-button one which does work w/ it.
A game which almost makes it is the prosaically named Ski and Shoot (a biathlon game) which also supports the Wii Balance Board --- I'd really like to see an FPS which did this well.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Then stop playing on consoles, and go join an archery club.
Really, I'm asking in all seriousness. The things that were presented in E3 seemed as gimmicky as when they first were thought of(u-force, etc). Almost 20 years ago we had the gimmick of "multimedia" with games having FMV sequences, and it ended up being a bunch of bad Sega CD games.
Then I thought of the video game crash(no more Atari, Coleco, Intelly, etc) and what good came out of it: a revamped market that wasn't the same ol same ol. A cleansing with fire.
I remember the "pop the bubbles" game that came free with a webcam. Amusing for roughly 5 minutes. Sony's wand seems like they are just trying to catch up to the Wii, but it's too late.
Don't underestimate the value of the original. Sony or MS would sell a "Wii", but they couldn't call it a Wii due to trademarks, and they wouldn't be able to do a lot of the same design things, due to copyright (which is way too long as it is, but still a useful concept if done right). They could have a knock-off that does the same things, but they couldn't ever have a Wii. And people wouldn't want the knock-off by and large, they'd want the original, which is guaranteed to be compatible, and is the only one that'll get the game and system updates from Nintendo.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I believe that the video displayed earlier was only a tech demo, as in pre-recorded. Otherwise it has a horribly slow reaction time to movements... sometimes 2-3 seconds later, the character would move. When the 360's product comes out, or an actual demonstration occurs, I will be MUCH more interested.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
I suspect the reason for your dislike of the Wii is simply your approach to gaming. I imagine you sit down and play a game for 2+ hours with some frequency (daily, every other day). I will readily admit that the Wii is not particularly well suited to that type of gameplay. It is, however, very well suited to less "serious" gameplay - an hour at a time, a couple of times a week, and "party" style gameplay, where your primary purpose is not actually playing the game, but interacting with a group of people.
I don't wholly agree with the GP, but just like there are fanboys for a particular platform (irrational support of and expenditure on a particular company's products) there are anti-fanboys (irrational distaste and malaise expressed towards a particular company's products) - call it the law of conservation of market preference. I think it's reasonable to say, also, that the size and vocality of a given anti-fanclub is as good (or perhaps even better) an indicator of the success of a product as that of its fanclub.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
In other news, the PS3 is soon to be renamed the P S Thwii.
Maybe things have changed a little bit now that people are more willing to accept buying add-on peripherals for their console now that Nintendo has made the idea more popular, but I don't think that this will help sell additional consoles for Sony or have any major content released for it.
Microsoft has much the same problem, even though I think that the technology is amazing. Their core audience probably couldn't care less about the device and generally prefer using console controls to play their games. Because it's an add-on, most companies will not target the device because it has no install base and few people will buy one because there are no killer apps for it. Notice the vicious circle here. I'm honestly surprised that the balance board for the Wii has sold even half as much as it has.
If Microsoft really wants to push this technology their next console should include this by default and there should be a stripped down version sold at a mass market price so that people outside of hardcore gamer group will buy the console. Sony really needs to do the same as well if it wants to cash in on the casual gaming crowd. However, what they've done now is too late as the casual gamer boat has already set sail. Of course, it may be another two years before either Microsoft or Sony can release a new console. Microsoft supposedly just started to break even recently and has a lot of losses to eat up whereas Sony might not even be at the break-even point from what I've heard.
"(The controller can be measured) to sub-millimeter accuracy."
Big deal. Get a good enough caliper and you can measure any old NES controller to sub-millimeter accuracy, too.
Bow-ties are cool.
You don't play with many "gamers" then. It's the people who identify themselves as "hardcore" that dislike the Wii, or find reasons to dislike it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Seriously, the more I played Wii Sports Golf and Wii Sports Tennis, the more I knew they'd screwed up.
You "knew they'd screwed up"? Really? Because the control setup of Golf and Tennis games on the PS3 were a better arrangement? Something they had really 'gotten right'?
but Big N's already, by producing an "add-on" sensor to tweak the sensitivity, admitting their initial setup wasn't good enough.
Bottom line, if the original hadn't been 'good enough', there wouldn't be a motion plus, or copy-cat technology from Microsoft and Nintendo.
I guess I should probably avoid mentioning that Sony has made FAR more revisions to their PS3 hardware over the last two years than Nintendo... also a tacit admission that they completely screwed it up? And now with the announcement of this new controller they are admitting that even the fundamental controller they went with wasn't good enough?
Yes they are improving it, yes, Sony and Microsoft are both stepping up with their own innovations. And, yes, all of these motion controller systems will be be replaced with even better tech a couple years down the road.
Calling the Wii Remote not 'good enough' and saying Nintendo 'screwed it up' is just sour grapes.
Did you notice how he kept missing the ball?
He can control where the bat is in space, but he has absolutely no idea where it is relative to the ball. This may work in combination with 3D TV, but even that will have calibration problems.
Sony's controller has knows it's absolute position, and the Wii knows it's relative position. The question is, when would you need to know a controllers absolute position?
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Well every console that is popular eventual ends up with a large amount of Shovelware. The PS2 is a great example of that.
Yes Nintendo was a control freak. They where because Atari lost control and that was one of the reasons that the Videogame market went bust way back when. The Atari was so popular that everybody flooded the market with really terrible games. There where some gems but most where just trash. Of course Atari released one of the biggest stinkers of all time with ET.
And frankly Sony? Sony? Rook kit pushing, DRM loving, memory stick, Blu-Ray pushing, buy your movies again on UMD, no Sony movies on NetFlix streaming SONY????
I will take big N thank you than give even more power to Sony.
You hold a grudge over Nintendo being too controlling in the past but you like Sony?
But hey I do like my PS2 and there are lot of games for it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What happened to head tracking? They demoed it a year ago http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/27/ps3-head-tracking-only-needs-camera/ - however TFA doesn't even mention it. A pity, it would have been a killer feature...
"A senior sits on top of the TV and detects the position, distance and movement of two controllers held in a user's hand..."
My first thought was to picture an elderly person sitting on top of my TV.
He said 'successful'. Despite what you saw in "The Wizard", the PowerGlove actually kinda sucked.
Seriously though, you might want to give it a try. I know you want to do ever-more-outrageous things in console games (like shooting people), but that's because the main theme of the game (interaction with the controls, possible results, learning to master it) get boring really quickly. In real life, all of these things are much more varied and interesting; different bows, different strings, your muscles on different days, different wind, different targets, different people to compete with, different arrows, different flights. Even just the pain as a string hits your hand to remind you that you're doing it all wrong. You might even find that (*gasp*) you don't need to kill people to have fun.
Gamers have to dislike the Wii, it makes the market open and accessible to non-gamers. It's Gamer Law (or should that be lore?) you have to hate the n00bs and anything they touch gets the stigma of n00b.
Retardball Z? No thanks.