Grand Slam Tennis requires no WM+ calibration between rounds

[famousringo]

WereKitten said:

famousringo said:

http://gonintendo.com/?p=80601

EA boasts that Grand Slam Tennis will not require calibration between rounds, unlike Sega's Virtua Tennis 2009. Instead, calibration will be done on the fly without input from the player as the match loads. This comes Shortly after Sega brags that Virtua Tennis '09's implementation of Wii MotionPlus controls will not require buttons to be pressed during gameplay.

I'm guessing that EA's using gravity as a reference point to make sure the gyros stay on course during the match.

Will this influence anybody's decision on which tennis game they'll buy? Would you rather press buttons during the game, or in between points?

You can only use gravity to calibrate pitch and roll, but not yaw, ie not on the horizontal plane. They can use the IR pointing to correct the horizontal drift without the player pressing any button, but even this won't work if the player keeps the wiimote pointing offscreen for a long while.

 

 

Yes, I understand that gravity will only provide a reference point for two planes, but given that Virtua Tennis wants IR calibration for every point rather than every match, this suggests that EA has a clever trick for extending the period between calibrations. I would think that relying on sweeps past the sensor bar during gameplay is even less reliable than gravity. It's pure speculation on my part, but I think that regular sampling of the direction of gravity, in conjunction with sensor data on acceleration and orientation, might be used to pull it off.

I guess another possibility is that EA has simply designed their game not to require as much sensor precision as Virtua Tennis. It makes sense when you consider their reliance on buttons.