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The Fall and Rise of Motion Control For Games
Eurogamer has a story about how the design of motion-control input devices has evolved over the years, ranging from the Nintendo Power Glove and Sega Activator up to modern devices like the Wii Remote and the upcoming projects by Sony and Microsoft. Now that the technology has caught up with the ideas, EA CEO John Riccitello said he expects motion-control gaming to rapidly expand, eventually occupying half the total games market. He said, "We almost invested to create a platform extension like that for some of the games we're working on. We're very pleased, frankly, that it showed up at Microsoft, because I'd rather them pay for that. They can leverage it better, and we can build software. But I felt the market wanted that technology and I'm glad it's coming."
1. You ignore the PC, phone and handheld segments
2. Whilst the Wii has sold well I'd be surprised (but I guess not too surprised) if it made up 50% of the living room console market when games are taken into account.
Have you used a Wii controller? It sucks hard.
Does anyone else prefer just a standard controller?
Replace "motion controller" with "virtual reality" and see if you can remember reading this same article circa 1990.
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Wii Motion+ seems to me like the kind of feature that the Wiimote should have shipped with in the first place. You shouldn't have to replace core functionality with better hardware halfway through your product's lifecycle.
Why not? If it wasn't ready then it's not like the original product didn't work. You choose if you want to upgrade by spending the money or not. I don't see why people don't PREFER options, vs. abhorring them.
Yet most Wii games don't really use motion controls at all... They either ignore it, or convert "Waggle" to a button press.
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I want a kunfu game where my actions dodge or hit the enemies. And I don't want it to be cheesy where my moves are interpreted into a set move that could have been done with a joystick or keyboard. I want my punch's(or kick) velocity and hit placement to determine the damage dealt.
God spoke to me.
Cheap MEMS gyroscopes didn't exist in 2006. They did as good as they could have for a consumer product at the time.
It isn't an ideal situation, but it's better for Nintendo than letting Natal and the Sony wand completely obsolete the Wii hardware.
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Very cute, but it's really not that different from a mouse-and-keyboard setup. Which, you know, those rather un-casual Counterstrike types tend to like.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I don't see a very practical use for all this motion control in turn-based strategy games - you know, the sort of games that work the mind rather than the reflexes. I suspect that increased availability of these devices and the technology will make FPS and "arcade" style games even more dominant than they already are. They will entice kids to "think with their hands" instead of their heads. It may be true that the majority are already inclined or predisposed to that, but it doesn't help shift the Bell Curve when Big Business panders to the median for the sake of profit rather than trying to help shift the median to the right a little.
It's not that people abhor options, but you do have to look pragmatically at both the pros and cons of add-on peripherals in the console marketplace.
From a simple numbers perspective, it means you've split your consumer-base. An add-on peripheral is never going to be as widely supported as original hardware. It also means that developers will be much less likely to *design* an entire game around the functionality of that new add-on, because they also have to think about how to make the game functional and fun for original Wii hardware.
Unless it comes with EVERY Wii, new hardware simply won't be taken advantage of to same degree, and with the substantial improvements of Wii Motion plus, it just seems a shame it wasn't working like that to begin with.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I don't see a very practical use for all this motion control in turn-based strategy games - you know, the sort of games that work the mind, but not the reflexes. They will entice kids to "think with their hands" in addition to their heads.
There. I fixed it for you.
But seriously, while I am disappointed the direction arcades, in general, have gone (all fps/racing/fighting; hardly any variation on themes), I don't think adding motion means that the games are going to be any more mindless. If you go from "A = Punch; B = Kick; C = Dodge" to "Thrust High = Punch; Thrust Low = Kick; Point up = Dodge", the game is just about as mindless, but it is at least more active.
Motion sensing opens up a whole new range of game possibilities. How much they suck is up to the people who make the games and the people who buy them.
I was playing a puzzle game on the Wii called Boom Blox. It's an idea similar to Jenga. You could have some something basic without motion sensing. But instead, you can have something with a rather impressive physics engine, such that understanding a thing or two about weight distribution and leverage can give you an edge. Here is a simple game where understanding and thought can give you a competitive edge.
As far as turn-based games go, I enjoy them a lot. There is nothing in a motion sensing controller that would prevent someone from making a turn-based game, and there are turn-based games for the current motion-sensing platforms.
As far as your subject, 'No use for TSB games'. There is still more possibilities with motion-sensing controls when it comes to giving your turns input. How much they make use of it depends on the developer and the game they are developing.
Intelligent developers would have a two-mode support - if you've got it, use it, but if you don't, fall back to the old method. It worked for Sony with the original PSX/PS1 controllers and their Dual-shock replacements with analogue sticks + rumble - by the end of the PS1's life, most games had support for analogue sticks, with fall-back to the d-pad (less ideal) for those who still had the original controllers. Helped that the dual-shock was bundled with the console shortly after its introduction too, though.
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