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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."
I find it odd to hear EA talking about how motion controls will "someday" make up 50% of console gaming. Meanwhile the Wii has about 50% marketshare already according to stats put out by the big 3. Seems to me we are already at about 50%.
The Wii controller is alot more useful than its given credit for, its a bluetooth HID and actually works really well on a computer, with a driver for it of course. I seen them used to control everything from WoW to a presentation.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
A friend of mine once broke a leg and, when I asked him what happened, he replied "I fell off a motorcycle." Since we weren't old enough to ride motorcycles back then, I was very surprised. Seeing this, he continued: "A motorcycle at the arcade." This was in the 90's.
I expect it will have best effect when used as a combination of the controller and the motion sensing, i.e. for motion sensing leaning round from cover could be done fairly trivially wheras it obviously won't cut it for running across a battlefield.
How about casting spells in Oblivion style games etc. Having heard that Natal is capable of tracking 42 joints (or something) I don't think it's too hard to imagine casting different spells by using alternating hands and hand gestures. Maybe even something elaborate like drawing a shape in the air ala Black & White's gesture system for the more complicated to cast spells.
What about using hand signals to command your squad like the real army do? e.g. halt, herringbone formation etc.
I'm sure if I can churn out these ideas in just a minute of idle thought then they'll find some interesting ways of integrating them with FPS.
Metroid Prime 3 says it can be done just fine for very casual players.
For the 1000th time
-"Casual" is only an insult to immature gamers who take themselves way too seriously. Using it as an insult makes you and the gaming community look ridiculous. Trying to contrast yourself to "casual" gaming also is ridiculous.
-"Casual" and "real/hardcore/super duper/other artificial term you come up with to make yourself sound better" are not mutually exclusive. It is actually possible to play wii fit and then play WoW or whatever games you prefer. The videogame police will really not come to your house and arrest you, your immune system won't kill you if you try to play the other game type.
The wii controller does not really require you to make exactly the same motion as hitting a bat with a ball or throwing a punch. It's a hybrid. You only need to flick your wrist. This does involve reflexes. It does not involve strength and to a lesser extent, stamina. It is still a lot of coordination. I think the old fighting games where you had to punch in a 10 button combination and get "nintendo thumb" is almost the same thing. The range of motion required for the wii mote is only slightly more than the old games. Sure, you can put more into it than that, but that is up to the user. If you do, you will become more fit and I think that was a little of the design behind the system. Plus you can get into it more. Have you ever seen someone playing an old nintendo game and lean back and forth with the controller as if it helped? With the wii, it does!