Don't know if anybody is interested but Johnny Lee is on the thewiire.com podcast (episode 93). He's on for the first 40 minutes.

http://thewiire.com/podcast.php

yeah, I'm not listening to him for 40 minutes. please summarize it if he says something actually half interest.

I heard him say that it's difficult to develop on the Wii. Wii's failure confirmed.

For anyone who cares, he actually said that devs have found that determining what motion is being made is difficult, mostly because of the way humans make the motions. So making sure it does the right motion without returning too many false positives/negatives is difficult.

Some interesting things that came out of interview of Johnny Lee:

-He has about 8 ideas for implementing the Wii remote, of which we have only seen 3. So there is more to come, but because of the most recent video (VR Head Tracking) he has been busier and has been contacted a lot more so it will take a little longer to release his next implementation.

-Developers have contacted him. They have shared some ideas and some of the difficulties with programming for some of the accelerometers (the difference between a slow tennis swing and a fast tennis swing). He think that this can get much better.

-Had an internship with Microsoft research and tried to implement (and to convince to have) accelerometers in an XBOX controller during the XBOX life cycle.

-"Major" Developers want to implement the VR head tracking and are contemplating bundling a game with the necessary equipment and so the devs must go through Nintendo. Nintendo has yet to approve the bundled hardware. Lee says consequently if Ninty does allow this that Microsoft/Sony interested.

-If the software/hardware does get approved it, earliest to see games would be summer in 2009.

-Johnny is asked if he thinks (VR headset is the future) and his response is "We are not done until we have the Holodeck from Star Trek".

-Concerning gaming's future is "to increase immersion and interactivity. and not necessarily better graphics," and which ever console implements those ideas will be the most successful.

-His theme for working is "doing a lot with a little" or as someone said "under-engineering".

-Nintendo has not contacted him. And he thinks its better that they don't to level expectations from the gaming community.

I found it very interesting hearing it from him and I hope to hear more from him. If you haven't check out:
http://johnnylee.net/

Thank you very much for that summary, eatrice.

Things are always interesting when Johnny Lee is around.

great stuff... listening to it right now.

i can totally see the "noise" issue, because... well, it's something any engineer/scientist deals with on a routine basis.

personally, i don't think average programmers with a bachelors degree can do a particular great job on this. it's not exactly an easy problem, but i do believe that for seasoned researchers something like wii motion tracking it's a pretty standard and typical problem. i.e., if game studios have the personnel, it can be done very well.

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awesome! johnny lee is a graduate student, thought he's staff. he might get a job in the gaming industry after he gets his degree! if he doesn't go into academia, of course.

Eatrice, did you say that Sony and MS are interested, but Nintendo is not?

hope Ninty implements the first

 According to Johnny Lee, Nintendo has stayed silent on the subject matter which he thinks is best for them to stay quiet. I think he was just stating that Nintendo could see this implementation as not proper for the Wii. (now what they had in mind) Nintendo generally doesn't like latch on to other's tech/ideas. Now I would be shocked if they prevented a company from implementing it.

However I think Nintendo impemented the idea with their own patent. I don't it will make the light of day but it pretty much be cable of doing the same thing as the VR head tracking.

 http://kotaku.com/photogallery/wiipatents/1000617477

 One thing that might prevent Nintendo from going behind it is they like to boost their own products like Wii Fit. Both of those devices can be implemented very similiar (like skateboarding/snowboarding/surfing and even an FPS on the balance board could change perspective.)

 Oh yeah according to Lee Sony/Microsoft are interested. So I'm not saying that Nintendo isn't interested just that they have stayed tight liped and it may stay that way.

I'm curious to see with the advent of homebrew on the wii if the VR headtracking could be seen ealier.