TrueMotion Game Controller a Step Up From Wii Remote 187
Harry McCracken writes "One of my top picks at the Consumer Electronics Show was Sixense's TrueMotion, a game-controller technology that resembles the Wii's remote, but uses an electromagnetic field to provide far more precision — it knows the exact location of the controller in 3D space and which way you're pointing it. (The Wiimote only knows which direction you're moving the controller.) TrueMotion-based remotes are due by Christmas, bundled with a PC game for under $100."
Useless, like all innovative PC hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no economic sense in a game developer using this. Until Microsoft mandates that a bit of hardware is required for a "Genuine" windows machine, it will not factor in to any rational developers plans. And in this case its never going to happen, because it notionally excludes laptops, and no matter how painful it is in reality to play a mouse and keyboard game on a touchpad, its still "possible".
Anyway, MS want PC gaming dead just as much as everybody else now that X360 has been a relative success: any hardware innovation has to come from single source manufacturers, and in reality that means console manufacturers - and only Nintendo actually wants to even try - and Apple. All the clone makers just like to cower in a corner and pray for a behemoth like Intel, MS, or Google to innovate for them...
Its sad really, that the 80's with myriad incompatible silos of innovation seem so bright nowadays...
Does anyone think these things through? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but when I use my computer, I'm sitting at a desk with a keyboard and a mouse. I'm too close to my monitor to start pointing a remote at it.
I also can't imagine putting the remote down, use the keyboard, picking the remote again, repeat.
The Wiimote is a great idea because we can't really use a mouse when sitting in front of a TV, and crappy, small, over-touchy analog sticks on a gamepad is a stupid idea to begin with.
Re:Useless, like all innovative PC hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
This maybe has a chance:
If they make the API open and give dev's a way to easily integrate.
If they collaborate with other device makers to settle on a common ground for functionality. This type of device, I am guessing will make it's way into PC mainstream at some point. One standard will come out on top. They need to make sure they help drive that standard.
If they allow other hardware makers to create devices that also work against that API so the developers aren't putting an effort into something that no one will care about or use.
Also, a killer must-have game would help. Maybe they should make a super cheap version that works with that killer game.
It's shaky ground, but it might happen.
I for one see these things as "just another device to clutter my life". That's why I never got a racing wheel as cool as they are.
Re:Eh... (Score:1, Interesting)
No, you're confusing ease of use with more advanced. If that was the case, linux would be the least advanced of the big-three OS's out there.
PC gaming IS more advanced due to this extra level of technological requirement, it's because it's always at the edge of technology that it's often seen as unstable and difficult to manage. Your own logic doesn't really make sense at all, if something is more advanced because it DOESN'T require new hardware, then surely each time a new console comes out, they become less and less advanced?
Re:Eh... (Score:5, Interesting)
How many console games require a new graphic card, new processor, more memory, DirectX/drivers updates or OS upgrades?
The NES, Sega Genesis, Neo Geo, N64, and probably other consoles I can't remember have required memory upgrades to play certain games. The Dreamcast, PS2, Original XBOX, XBOX 360, and PS3 have OS updates and game patches. I can't think of any console that offered a processor upgrade off the top of my head (the Jaguar maybe?).
No half hour installations, needles restarts, patches that take several hours to download and install.
Except the PS3 which requires large hard drive installs for many games. Or Last Remnant, which requires a hard drive install on the 360. I don't know about the giant patches you're talking about. You're probably talking about MMO client updates. There ARE no MMOs on the console except Final Fantasy XI which distributes such client updates on discs.
Only game niches where PC still keeps the crowd entertained with greater efficiency are RTS, FPS and MMORPG games.
The reality is more that genres change. PC gaming used to be dominated by point and click adventure games and flight sims. These genres didn't transition to the consoles, they faded in popularity. "Devil May Cry" style action-adventure games were big last generation, in this generation, not so much. And speaking of RPGs, console RPGs are widely incorporating elements from PC games, particularly MMOs (see FFXII) not the other way around.
Facts: PC game sales have been going up dramatically every year. Certain genres, and even certain games, have dominated PC gaming since it's inception. Those genres change over time.
People have been predicting the death of PC gaming since before it even started. It's not going to happen unless people stop using PCs or manufacturers refuse to make gaming hardware for PCs.
Re:Eh... (Score:3, Interesting)
local multiplayer games sitting in the couch
As more and more people hook their PCs up to their TVs, I wonder if split-screen gaming will come to the PC? I wonder if, now, you could plug four wireless USB keyboards and mice (or game controllers?) into a PC, run four instances of, say, Quake 3 in windows (with each configured to use a different keyboard+mouse/gamepad for input), and play a multiplayer game through a server on localhost -- so everyone can play on your big HDTV from the couch? Obviously configuration would be at least a minor pain in the butt, but I imagine the process could be automated -- perhaps by an OSS program with a database of user-contributed "presets" for different games?
Re:Eh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Followup 2:
These guys [youtube.com] had the same idea. In the discussion beneath the video, they talk about using programs called "xpadder" and "autohotkey" to control both windows simultaneously. From the sounds of things, this is a promising approach, but people haven't invested a lot of time into figuring out these program's scripting languages in order to make this work.
Re:Eh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Followup 3:
It seems that xpaddr converts gamepad button presses to keystrokes, and autohotkey is used to send those keystrokes to the correct windows. These guys [epicgames.com] have gotten this much working. Yet although dual-mouse drivers [sourceforge.net] exist, I have not found people who have gotten two mice working independently in different instances of the game. That said, if you're content with using a gamepad instead of a mouse, this seems to work.
It'd be nice if this mishmash of different software could be bundled together as a single "play games splitscreen" program -- which one could imagine also doing other things, like stripping game windows of borders and decorations, and aligning them all to precisely fill the screen automatically.
A completely different approach would be to use the split-screen desktop [microsoft.com] software that Microsoft should be releasing before too long, which should (hopefully) make this easy.
Finally, in all of this I haven't considered tricks with Wine and Linux; I assume that some things (like multiple mice) might be easier in such a framework. But I think that for games, a Windows-based approach is probably, if we're honest and not too ideological, much more practical.