Sony's new motion controllers are actually sweet

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:28 pm

So I wasn't really excited for Sony to reinvent the Wii until I saw this second video:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/48024 ... esentation

It looks like the orbs combined with the eye toy allow for tracking without having to reorient the controller or aim it at the TV. Looks pretty fucking sweet.

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:22 pm

QUICK QUICK INVADE THE MARKET NEWLY DISCOVERED BY A COMPETITOR
fucking puerile business model

Makes me wonder what the big N will pull for the next one.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 8:09 am

I think that this whole "jump on the bandwagon" thing might actually be really great news for Nintendo. Think about it. Not only does it completely validate their "experiment" in the way games should be played, but there's a decent chance that once all three systems are capable of motion controls, we'll actually start seeing developers bringing quality cross-platform games to the wii. Anyone who was previously worried about releasing a motion-controlled game on only one platform may now take the plunge instead of scrapping the idea entirely.

It does feel silly that everyone suddenly want motion controls, but if it ends up benefiting Nintendo (and really, the industry as a whole), I'm totally cool with it.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:47 am

DancemasterGlenn wrote:I think that this whole "jump on the bandwagon" thing might actually be really great news for Nintendo.

How? everyone would not bother with a Wii then because they can get the same games at higher resolutions/quality on the other consoles o_o.

Post by **badinsults** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:33 pm

Do you seriously expect a ton of people to go out and buy this? The thing about the Wii controller is that it is the default one. It will be hard to justify making a ton of games for something that doesn't come with the system.

PHoNyMiKe · Post by **PHoNyMiKe** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:40 pm

yeah it sucks because a cool game comes out on the wii, but then it has gay ass controls. like mortal kombat, you gotta spin the controller and wirl it around and such to fight. though tiger woods golf and metroid prime 3 make great use of such controls, most games end up having stupid controller movements because that's all the wii offers. it took sony two and a half years but they totally outdid nintendo with this one.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 5:42 pm

There's Wii Motion Plus for full 1:1 control. It is an add-on too, but since it's being packaged with many games (including Wii Sports Resort), there will probably be more people buying that compared to what MS and Sony are doing.

whicker · Post by **whicker** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:47 pm

grinvader wrote: Makes me wonder what the big N will pull for the next one.

Just the next "common sense" approach.

Touchscreen on the DS was common sense. portable unit, looked similar anyway to WinCE or Palm devices.

A mems accelerometer in the wiimote because they had at that point gotten so cheap it would be stupid not to include it. As far as the tracking, if they could have gotten away with the Super-Scope scanline approach, they would have used that. Instead, for LCD TV's somebody had to invert the process and put the scanning device into the remote.

since nobody cares to consult me, something else obvious is non-mechanical switch contact sensing. Like since the penultimate design seems to be the bar of soap you can stick up your whowho, why allow any nobby buttons to get in the way to snag on something. Besides, sony did it "first" with the PS3 power button. when somebody else comes out with it, they "obviously" stole it from them.

is there a "geotracking" DSi game yet? God I fucking hate that word.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:47 pm

DancemasterGlenn wrote:I think that this whole "jump on the bandwagon" thing might actually be really great news for Nintendo. Think about it. Not only does it completely validate their "experiment" in the way games should be played, but there's a decent chance that once all three systems are capable of motion controls, we'll actually start seeing developers bringing quality cross-platform games to the wii. Anyone who was previously worried about releasing a motion-controlled game on only one platform may now take the plunge instead of scrapping the idea entirely.

It does feel silly that everyone suddenly want motion controls, but if it ends up benefiting Nintendo (and really, the industry as a whole), I'm totally cool with it.

Both the xball and ps3 motion sensing stuffs are supposedly better than what can be done with a wiimote from what I heard.
No idea how much of that is true. But that would make them both go swiftly to the front and game developpers would end up not being able to port stuff to wii.

Post by **Nach** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:48 am

grinvader wrote: Makes me wonder what the big N will pull for the next one.

Let's see...

D-Pad, side scrolling, pause on the controller.
Shoulder buttons, 15 bit color, 3D angle processing.
Thumb analog stick, camera angles, force feedback.
A big stupid A button???
Motion controller, emulation, off the shelf.

Where to go from there? Forget controllers altogether? Lets just use wristbands, and put cameras in the console to also visually see you and movement? Registering pupil dilation, providing an AI that can read body language? Projection keyboard where the game can change it on the fly..

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:14 am

Nach wrote:
grinvader wrote: Makes me wonder what the big N will pull for the next one.
Let's see...

D-Pad, side scrolling, pause on the controller.

Mattel Intellivision. Atari VCS/2600. Atari 5200.

Thanks for playing.

Don't get me wrong, Nintendo's implementation of the d-pad in the NES and Game&Watch Donkey Kong was a much better solution than the INTV's in most respects(INTV lacks tactile guides for the cardinal directions and a central pivot point, like some revisions of the standard Genesis controller).
But that doesn't make Nintendo first. 1982 is AFTER 1979 no matter how you slice it, unless you start creating artificial distinctions between d-pads and "digital directional control devices that lack levers."

The INTV directional pad IS the first d-pad. The fact that Mattel didn't coin the term has little bearing on anything.

As for pause... the 5200 has a DEDICATED pause button sitting next to the start button.
It also has an on-controller reset button on the other side of pause, which is of more questionable utility, especially given the short controller cables of the era.

The Intellivision has pause, but it's not a dedicated button. Pressing 1 and 9 at the same time paused the game.

And side-scrolling? Seriously?

camera angles

What?

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:16 am

Nach was listing off the innovations given in each generation of hardware, not where we could go next.

Johan_H · Post by **Johan_H** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:28 am

DancemasterGlenn wrote:Nach was listing off the innovations given in each generation of hardware, not where we could go next.

I think Gil was saying than Nintendo was not first to implement those things.

Gil_Hamilton wrote:And side-scrolling? Seriously?

The NES was the first machine to really do it well, no?

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:01 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Mattel Intellivision. Atari VCS/2600. Atari 5200.

Thanks for playing.

Code: Select all

<grinvader> Nach: i don't understand your words
<grinvader> what does 'side scrolling' mean
<Nach>      grinvader: I went through Nintendo's consoles, highlighting some things they did new that consoles didn't
<grinvader> side scrolling is older than NES
<Nach>      side scrolling gaming, SMB... never done before
<grinvader> dude
<grinvader> way older
<Nach>      on a console?
<grinvader> way older
<Nach>      ON A CONSOLE?
<grinvader> atari
<grinvader> is console
<Nach>      yes, and did Atari have any side scrolling games?
<grinvader> ask JB
<grinvader> ask JEEVES BADASS
<Nach>      well, I do have to say Nintendo popularized it
<grinvader> the dpad too
<grinvader> it existed before the nes
<Nach>      grinvader: yes, but not in a console
<grinvader> and was just 'widely popularized' by the famicom

(...)

<_jmr>      first side scrolling game was Defender, and that was 1980

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:29 am

As I have been indirectly appealed to, I should note that yes, Defender had a VCS/2600 port, with a copyright date of 1981.
While VCS Defender sucked for many reasons, the scrolling wasn't one of them.

There's several other scrolling games on pre-NES systems, including the 2600.
I don't believe there's any on the Channel F, though, making the VCS the oldest system to do it, if not the first system it was done on(with Defender being ported to about 5 platforms all at once).

I could argue Activision's Dragster, but that's an animated background more than a proper scrolling game.

As far as popularizing it... Defender was wildly successful, and inspired a whole slew of horizontally-scrolling shooters, including Konami's Scramble(which in turn begat Gradius, my eternal nemesis).

Incidentally, another Williams game, Joust was ALSO a big deal.
And Miyamoto has acknowledged that one as a major inspiration for the not-super Mario Brothers competitive gameplay, and consequently the birth of Luigi.

Williams owns the plumbers.

And Mario isn't even the first scrolling PLATFORMER. Pitfall 2 predates it with a copyright of 1984(Pitfall! used fixed-screen transitions, but Pitfall 2 actually scrolled).
Unless you want to argue against Pitfall 2 because it features both horizontal AND vertical scrolling, which is like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Post by **Nach** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:07 pm

We don't point to Defender or Pitfall when we think about who popularized side scrolling games. First doesn't matter, who makes everyone takes notice matters.

It's not like the Wii invented motion controllers either.

So, what do you guys think about Nintendo's next console coming with a projection keyboard? Of course the game would be changing the exact layout on the fly. Oh you're flying a spaceship? Hello to spaceship controller. Oh you're playing something that only needs 3 buttons? Hello controller with exactly 3 buttons.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:23 pm

Nach wrote:We don't point to Defender or Pitfall when we think about who popularized side scrolling games.

Actually, when talking about shooters, we DO talk about Defender.
That or (ugh) Scramble.

You'd have a point if we were talking about I, Robot or something.

First doesn't matter, who makes everyone takes notice matters.

And pretty much EVERYONE took notice of the Intellivision controller.

Coleco jacked the design for their ColecoVision(and screwed it up so badly it was almost unplayable).
Atari jacked the design for their 5200, though they went with an analog joystick instead of a 16-position d-pad.
And a few third-parties jacked the design for everything else.

The fact that the entire market died a few years later and Nintendo targeted an audience that didn't remember the previous generation has really colored history.

Yes, these were big deals.
No, Nintendo wasn't gonna tell a bunch of 5-year-olds where they got the ideas.

And if it's who made people take notice, then console VS arcade distinctions don't matter.
Because if someone does an arcade game that makes people take notice, it will shortly wind up on consoles. Even odds on if it gets ported before someone releases a knockoff.

So, what do you guys think about Nintendo's next console coming with a projection keyboard? Of course the game would be changing the exact layout on the fly. Oh you're flying a spaceship? Hello to spaceship controller. Oh you're playing something that only needs 3 buttons? Hello controller with exactly 3 buttons.

Isn't that what happened to the DS while they were trying to figure out what they could do with a touch screen?

Also: tactile feedback? Hello?

Post by **Nach** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:34 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote: Also: tactile feedback? Hello?

Powerglove 2? Hello?

whicker · Post by **whicker** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:15 am

Nach wrote:
Gil_Hamilton wrote: Also: tactile feedback? Hello?
Powerglove 2? Hello?

The company that produced the stretch-sensors, Spectra Symbol, has seen a bit more interest lately in the hobbyist realm.

maybe the horrible hollywood weirdness that surrounded virtual reality has finally been forgotten by the masses. I wouldn't mind wearing a glove and doing the whole one-handed steering wheel movement thing again.

It could be a good thing in that there's nothing that can be thrown across the room (inb4 this is so old:) ala http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

PHoNyMiKe · Post by **PHoNyMiKe** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:38 am

computers with powerful nvidia video cards can do 3d gaming, generating 2 screens at once, how about a console that does that? you need a special monitor, capable of 120fps. fuck it, design a system where it generates one 3d image, but have some of that data image data cached so the camera angle can change a few degrees to make the image for the other eye, yet not have to redraw and calculate an entire new image. then you wouldn't need a system twice as fast, only like 1.5 times as fast. looking at the nach timeline, the sega master system had such a 3d system.

p.s. pitfall wasn't a side scroller right? it just changed the board each time you hit the left or right side, like e.t. and as far side scrollers go, mario was a big one, the other milestone being mario 3 where you could backtrack on the board to the beginning, and not be trapped as you progress. maybe mario 3 wasn't the first but it's what comes to my mind.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:02 am

PHoNyMiKe wrote:... looking at the nach timeline, the sega master system had such a 3d system.

So did the Famicom.

And both of them were predated by the Vectrex's 3D Imager, which was only barely available, had serious problems due to phosphor persistence, and is totally irrelevant to anything other than claims of who dunnit first.
But still... Vectrex did it first!

p.s. pitfall wasn't a side scroller right? it just changed the board each time you hit the left or right side, like e.t.

Pitfall 2 was scrolling, though.
Actually, it had both horizontal AND vertical scrolling. Combine that with the focus on exploration, and it's more like Metroid than Mario.

and as far side scrollers go, mario was a big one, the other milestone being mario 3 where you could backtrack on the board to the beginning, and not be trapped as you progress. maybe mario 3 wasn't the first but it's what comes to my mind.

Super Mario 2 let you backtrack.

Super Mario Brothers may be the first notable scrolling platformer. Pitfall 2 wasn't a huge seller, as late in the first era as it was.

Killa B · Post by **Killa B** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:20 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Super Mario 2 let you backtrack.

SMB2 US lets you backtrack. SMB2j does not.

So, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first real Mario game that let you backtrack.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:57 am

Killa B wrote:
Gil_Hamilton wrote:Super Mario 2 let you backtrack.
SMB2 US lets you backtrack. SMB2j does not.

So, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first real Mario game that let you backtrack.

It was QUITE clear which game I meant.

And even Japan counts US Super Mario 2 as a "real" Mario game.

Besides which, it was which PLATFORMER let you backtrack, not which Mario game. So your nitpicking fails on multiple counts.

Sidenote: Megaman predates Super Mario 2. I don't intend to try and backtrack the "first notable backtrackable scrolling platformer" any further.

Killa B · Post by **Killa B** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:02 am

Oh, I thought we were talking about Mario games.

I knew you were talking about SMB2 US. Japan didn't count that as a real Mario game until 1992.

So my nitpicking only fails on a single count!

PHoNyMiKe · Post by **PHoNyMiKe** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:14 am

Gil_Hamilton wrote:Super Mario 2 let you backtrack.

Killa B wrote:I knew you were talking about SMB2 US. Japan didn't count that as a real Mario game until 1992.

I got 3 words for you dickheads trying to be all correct and shit. doki doki panic. fuck off with your weak ass replies, does anyone know how to have a conversation around here? I even pre-0wned your asses with my

PHoNyMiKe wrote:maybe mario 3 wasn't the first but it's what comes to my mind.

and as for megaman I never even played those shitty games. megaman is just some fag with a big dildo in his hand. he can't hang with any real hero like batman or superman, no he's just shitty megaman.

p.s. it's called the lost levels.