The Natal system is the most interesting of the 3. If they can pull off what they demonstrated in the video and have a product on the market first half of next year they may have a chance.

I also think it must be possible to implement partial elements of the Natal system so we can use Facial recognition and hand recognition and a traditional controller. Some games aka the driving games may be do able without a controller others may not. I can see examples of Milo type avatars being used in a game inconjunction with a normal controller for example.

It is all very exicting stuff but it needs the following to succeed in my opinion. This is probably also true of the Sony offering obviously Nintendo do not have the same issues and so will be affected to a much lesser degree.

Momentum - They need to capture this interest and get a product out ASAP
Support - They need to put software out their and even make some backwards compatible
Price - It needs to be priced competively or delivered to market via bundle or deal.

Can they do all that... Dunno but it will be fun watching from the sidelines.

NJ5 said: I think the first two examples can be done with quite coarse positioning, even without WM+. You may have a point with the boxing example though, time will tell. I suspect WM+ is accurate enough for that , but of course you would need two Wii Remotes, the nunchuk is not good enough for that.

Maybe you could do the first two with indirect position tracking, but not without WM+. You need it to distinguish between an acceleration and gravity, basically because using the WM+ you know which direction is down in an indipendent manner, and thus you can subtract a vertical 1g acceleration from the numbers registered by the accelerometers in the Wiimote.

The trouble with indirect tracking is that it would probably fail depending on the velocity with which you transition between stances, accumulating errors. As in, the slower your movements the less precisely they would be tracked. I read on a Wii hacker's blog that the Wiimote uses 8 bits for accelerations, with 1g being about 20% of the scale, something like 53 out of 0-255 range. If it scales linearly, this means that the Wiimote will fail to register accelerations of less than about 1/50 of g (about 20 cm/s^2). That's a slow movement, but perfectly plausible in a game action and once it fails to register even for say a second, you'll find your real arm and your virtual one displaced until the next IR calibration happens.

Even more errors will accumulate if the gyroscopes in the WM+ aren't calibrated often enough.

Talking of which, I don't know how calibration is supposed to work in Sony's wands.

You forgot to add that all 3 will give us cancer.

I hope Sony and Microsoft's entries hit the market soon, though. I was kinda tired of motion controls, but I'm excited again! And I'll be getting the Wii Motion Plus on day one. I'm a fickle mistress!

Now that all 3 companies now have a motion control solution, I really interested in what peoples thoughts are for a future generation of consoles.

For me personally I think that Nintendo have this current generation sown up with regards to motion control. Even if Sony and Microsoft do release working solutions with games it will be too little to late to gain mass adoption. They could however show some interesting games/features that could get developers and consumers excited for a future console.

With regard to the future, do all 3 console makers follow Nintendos lead and have motion control the default control mechanism out of the box with the "classic" controller as an additional add-on?

If they do, what will the developers do to impliment "maybe" 3 different control systems for multi-platform games?

I'm quite looking forward to a future with motion control but only when it enhances the gaming experience.

For tech and sexiness I see it as Natal > Sony > Nintendo

For usability with games (assuming Natal sticks to no controller, etc. which I actually doubt) then I see it as Sony slightly edging Nintendo (due to camera plus 1:1 motion > Natal (as while Natal looks superior for some elements I believe it will struggle for more normal games.

Also, I still want the best input option available if possible. I don't want things 'just because' - a case in point is the description of Burnout running with Natal. It sounds cool, but clearly an actual wheel and pedals is the superior input for a driving game, while motion control is best for sports, etc. and a traditional control (I believe) for platforming/FPS.

Reasonable said: For tech and sexiness I see it as Natal > Sony > Nintendo For usability with games (assuming Natal sticks to no controller, etc. which I actually doubt) then I see it as Sony slightly edging Nintendo (due to camera plus 1:1 motion > Natal (as while Natal looks superior for some elements I believe it will struggle for more normal games. Also, I still want the best input option available if possible. I don't want things 'just because' - a case in point is the description of Burnout running with Natal. It sounds cool, but clearly an actual wheel and pedals is the superior input for a driving game, while motion control is best for sports, etc. and a traditional control (I believe) for platforming/FPS.

I agree. Where Nintendo wins is that their technology is already available (or will be in a few days), as well as software to be released soon. Another advantage is that Nintendo's alternative is probably cheaper too (as long as you don't get 4 controllers, which few people do).

By the time Sony and Microsoft are fully exploiting their motion stuff, there will already be millions of WM+ and WM+ software sold, and Nintendo will be working on the next thing. Nintendo has a huge time advantage in controls, let's see if Sony and MS catch up in time.

PS: I think keyboard+mouse and Wiimote+nunchuk are still the best for FPS ;)

 

NJ5 said: Reasonable said: For tech and sexiness I see it as Natal > Sony > Nintendo For usability with games (assuming Natal sticks to no controller, etc. which I actually doubt) then I see it as Sony slightly edging Nintendo (due to camera plus 1:1 motion > Natal (as while Natal looks superior for some elements I believe it will struggle for more normal games. Also, I still want the best input option available if possible. I don't want things 'just because' - a case in point is the description of Burnout running with Natal. It sounds cool, but clearly an actual wheel and pedals is the superior input for a driving game, while motion control is best for sports, etc. and a traditional control (I believe) for platforming/FPS. I agree. Where Nintendo wins is that their technology is already available (or will be in a few days), as well as software to be released soon. Another advantage is that Nintendo's alternative is probably cheaper too (as long as you don't get 4 controllers, which few people do). By the time Sony and Microsoft are fully exploiting their motion stuff, there will already be millions of WM+ and WM+ software sold, and Nintendo will be working on the next thing. Nintendo has a huge time advantage in controls, let's see if Sony and MS catch up in time. PS: I think keyboard+mouse and Wiimote+nunchuk are still the best for FPS ;)

It's funny, when I think traditional control for FPS I think K&M... I still think gamepads seem slightly... off.

Agree on your points.  I meant to also add that in terms of speed to market, etc. then I see it as:

Nintendo > Sony > MS - after all, even allowing for the SIXAXIS Nintendo have clearly led with motion sensing input from the start.

 

NJ5 said: The Ghost of RubangB said: WereKitten said: @RubangB Adding an analog on the Sony wand would be trivial, as well as using two of them. Don't know how MS will tackle the need for at least a modicum of traditional input. If you were to design a game using two Sony motion detection controllers and the PlayStation Eye, how would your character walk?  Not across the screen, but across an entire game world?  I don't think walking in place for an entire 5-45 hour "hardcore" game would happen.  I think you need your hands to walk somehow. I think his point is that by using two Sony wands you can have Wiimote plus Nunchuk functionality, as long as the wands have an analog stick as well. I think MS's approach is a pipe dream which is going to be hampered by many practical factors, while Sony's (i.e. Nintendo's) approach is the sensible one. Even the example of Burnout paradise requires that the camera can see your feet... If you have a table between your couch and the TV, forget about it.

I think that MS aproach offers some great possibilities but is very restricted for others. For example you can probably make absolutly best tennis simulator possible at the consoles. But a game like Red Steel would be problematic. Probably Sony solution is most versatile one becouse it joins WM+ with camera. Then again apart from sports games i don't see how other titles can benefit from motion control which would be better than mouse+keybord or classic analog joystick (and i mean amiga or flight sims one not some sorry excuses we get on gamepads those days) with keybord setups.

How can people say a device whch was basically a hurriedly knocked up rip off could have higher tech than something that has been around/ researched on since the start of this gen? Am sure you can't tell just from a couple of minutes' demo.

Good thread, though I have one issue jetrii.

I'm reading your posts with the voice of Hubert Farnsworth, which makes it difficult for me to take it seriously xD