Nintendo Unconcerned By Motion-Control Competitors 150
The Guardian's games blog reports on comments by Nintendo discussing why it's not worried about competition from Microsoft and Sony after their recent motion-control announcements at E3. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime said, "The only thing I'll say is a rhetorical question. Is it fun? If it's fun, then I tip my hat and say, 'Well done.' But what's happening sounds to me a lot like, 'Who's got the prettiest picture. Who's got high-definition. Who has the best processing power?' It sounds like technology, when the consumer wants to be entertained. Our focus is how do we take active play and make it entertainment. And that's what we're going to continue to focus on."
Games, games, games. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like with any console hardware... Games are the ultimate measure of success.
If the games are good, the hardware fades away. There are great games for all three platforms. I'm happy with my Wii so far. Was a lot cheaper than the competition when I got it, and for me the family focus is a great asset. With four controllers I can have all kids entertained at the same time in something like Mario Kart Wii, and it's not like there aren't games for more mature gamers too... (Mad World, House of the Dead Overkill, Guitar Hero, I could go on.)
There is no best or worst console out there at the moment. You should really just focus on what games you want to play and get a console or consoles based on that.
Re:Project natal (Score:4, Insightful)
Force feedback is a hack.
Not really more than 3D graphics are a hack.
It was designed to try and help immerse people in games better but within the limitation that you still had to use a controller.
Ditto for 3D graphics. Help immerse people in games better within the limitation that you still have to look at a screen.
Similiar force feedback is trying to compensate for the fact that that you can't feel anything from the game world... when a rocket explodes, when your car crashes, when your jet is starting to stall, when you take a punch, when you foul a ball... force feedback can't (and in some cases [car crash] shouldn't be entirely realistic, but it helps. I like the way Need For Speed gives you different feedback for different driving surfaces... and how you can actually feel your tires start to skip as you make a tight turn. This is genuinely useful feedback on top of the audio and visual feedback.
The whole idea of Natal is moving beyond the controller, immersing people in the game by allowing them to interact directly.
You can't really interact directly without a sense of touch.
Sony's offering rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm the most excited about the motion-controls that Sony demoed. Just check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiX-26VL4bM [youtube.com]
It's hard not to be impressed by the demonstration of what gamers have been dying to be able to do for ages now: true 1:1 positional tracking, a sword and shield in-game, PERFECT.
So, in my mind, Sony's got the lead on next gen just from that. Falling to last place has actually done some good in this case, it made Sony try.
Behind Sony I'll place Nintendo. They need to up the ante for the next gen, but we can almost guarantee they'll have at least a decent offering, of not totally cutting edge, and that's fine. Sony may once against price themselves out of the market and make a horribly complex console--time will tell, but we know Nintendo won't make that mistake.
Then there's Microsoft, with their faked Lionhead / Milo demo. The controller without a controller? It had better be perfect, or they're sunk.
Lastly, we're all still waiting for someone to show off the final kicker: Johnny Lee style head-tracking for simulated 3d: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw)
Whoever can pull that out of their hat AND positional input will capture the public's imagination. Can't wait for the next gen :)
Re:Project natal (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, they shouldn't be worried. Most people don't understand or care about HD. I'm sure you've seen people buying huge TVs and then connecting them with composite cables to their DVD player. They're happy about it too.
Nintendo is still selling at more than 50% market share (even though total market share is not quite there yet), and they keep breaking PS2's sales records. The Wii is doing fine.
And Nintendo also stated this as a P.S..... (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. Nanny nanny boo boo we had the cool technology before you did.
Seriously, we wouldn't be even talking about the wii if it didn't have the cool technology controls. Without that, many of their games would be re-hashed old ones, or not even possible.
So it's all about entertainment - once you have the technology. And don't think that Nintendo isn't ALSO working on the technology aspect of it.
Re:Sony's offering rocks (Score:3, Insightful)
Well no, again you're making things up. It doesn't show that the demo was faked, because being faked suggests that the whole thing is essentially a non-interactive video, yet clearly the water situation where her image is shown from the camera and rendered onto the water debunks that.
All that YouTube video does is back up my point that the responses and actions are entirely scripted, but that this doesn't detract from the fact those scripted actions are occuring in response to real input.
You'd have to be an idiot to think Microsoft have produced AI capable of slaughtering the Turing test although this is effectively what the video suggests if you take it at face value. What they have done is allowed you to interact directly with the game using 3D depth perception hardware, voice recognition and gesture recognition.
It's a little misleading of Microsoft to the uninformed who would certainly take from this that Microsoft has produced some strong AI, but certainly to anyone who understands the basics of technology and can properly analyse what they've done with an understanding of the technology and how it's possible it's fairly clear that she is in fact interacting with the demo, even if the responses to her interactions are entirely pre-scripted.
Re:If this is about what the consumer wants... (Score:2, Insightful)
From what I read the FF4 release got cancelled because Nintendo demanded some changes to the crappy control scheme and a ton of bugfixes before they'd release it in the west (e.g. the flashlight wasn't pointed with the IR system but with a weird analog stick and remote tilt control scheme) and Tecmo refused to do them. The reviews of the Japanese version were very critical of the controls and general buggyness so that seems to be a major issue.
Re:DUH... (Score:1, Insightful)
The big problem for the Wii is that pretty much everyone else produces shovelware using the motion control as a gimmick without much gameplay.
Re:If this is about what the consumer wants... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well the main problem of Adult gamer in my opinion is that it gathers only to the 15-22 age crowd, which means pointless violence and no substance!
What the industry understands as adult gamer should be labeled late teen male crowd!
Re:DUH... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, unlike the PS3 and 360, whose proponents *never* mention their HD resolutions, processing power, or storage capacity.
--Jeremy