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daroamer on 04 June 2009
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Khuutra said:
daroamer said:

Again, you're just arguing semantics.  In common speech "more complex" and "more advanced" are often synonymous.  To use your own example, an F16 would be considered far more advanced than the Wright brothers plane despite both achieving flight in different ways.  The WM+ and Natal both use motion to control video games, they both use different methods for achieving that, yet it's perfectly valid to compare the complexity of those two approaches in terms of technology.

I'll concede that the WM+ does have some advantages to Natal and would be a better choice in some situations but I don't think you can argue that the technology with Natal is more advanced.  My hammer is better at hammering nails than my computer is but I still consider my computer far more advanced.

Of course I'm arguing semantics, my field of study is next-door-neighbors to semanticism and linguistics is one of my passions. Arguing semantics does not somehow invalidate my point.

What you're doing is not comparing an F-16 to the Wright Brothers plane, you're comparing a Harrier to an attack helicopter. Neither is necessarily more advanced than the other, they just use dissimilar technology to achieve superficially similar ends in very specific (but different) contexts.

There are two separate arguments that can be made here, and those are the only cases in which "advanced" can be accepted as a descriptor of two technologies that achieve similar ends through distinct means.

The first is in the sophistication of any given technological part: the fact that Natal is able to read depth via an IR sensor that reads wavelengths and so forth is considerably more sophisticated than, say, the Wii remote's IR sensor, but I don't know if it's necessarily more sophisticated than the gyroscopes and accelerometers that WM+ uses. I'm not an expert there.

The second is how close it is in achieving a given purpose (your hammer is a more advanced nail-pounder than your computer, for instance), and on this front I don't have enough data to say for sure one way or another, but it looks as if playing games via motion has been made more intuitive and more efficient on the Wiimote. I don't know that for sure, of course, so I won't pass judgment, but I have the feeling that this is the definition of "advancement" that will end up mattering most. Until Natal proves itself, anyone who cares will be able to say that Wii remote is more advanced as a motion detecting game device.

Well I guess that's the point we're making, technologically I feel Natal is more advanced than the WM+ because it's doing things that no one else is doing or has done.  3D sensing cameras are far more current technology than gyroscopes and accelerometers, as brilliant and groundbreaking as that controller was to video games.  Just as the Wii remote is more advanced than the Sixaxis controller. Nevermind also have face and voice recognition.  Whether one is more adept at being used as a game controller is another debate altogether but I think the technology behind Natal is more current ie. more advanced, than what is used in the Wii controller.

Just my opinion anyway.