Posts tagged: gamedev
Ok, this head tracking shit is getting out of hand. Now I’m not specifically talking about guys playing around with the idea and hacking existing hardware into an implementation. I’m more referring to fanboi’s who have been circle jerking all over themselves ever since Johnny Chung Lee’s experimental projects with the Wiimote exploded all over the web (in particular the head tracking demo posted on Youtube last month). I’ve even commented on a few sites that this really isn’t that new or innovative since folks over at Natural Point who make the TrackIR products have essentially been selling products (that are already supported in games) for a few years now that allow this sort of functionality. The thing is, the principle is really quite simple, and I even pointed out that it could probably be done with the PS Eye or any other webcam (the PS Eye would probably be most suited due to it’s higher spec sensor and the fact that it relies on the host for image processing instead of internal image processing prevalent on most webcams). Lo’ and behold, some PS3 developer goes ahead and does just that!
The really neat aspect of this and Johnny’s work isn’t so much the tracking aspect as the explorative use of existing devices for tasks other than their explicitly designed purpose (granted the PS Eye and Eye Toy were designed just for this sort of thing, the only real difference is using the visible light spectrum vs. infrared spectrum). He even credits Johnny for inspiring him to do this demo as a response to Johnny’s. The only sad part is that again the TrackIR folks don’t seem to get any credit for their years of hard work trying to make it this space. However, leave it to silly people to spout nonsense like this:
This is why I love Nintendo. Had Nintendo not innovated this generation, developers and competitors would not be looking at this technology as anything more than a passing fad. But now it’s serious – it’s real. If Nintendo would have given us a straight Gamecube successor, there is no way we’d be watching clips like this today – there would just be no precedent for technology like this to be useful in gaming. But now the landscape of gaming has changed completely – I can’t wait for the next wave of games to start implementing this sort of thing. Thanks for innovating, Nintendo. As usual, another company is doing it better – until you innovate once again.
Sorry fella, but Nintendo didn’t innovate this. This sort of thing has been going on long before Nintendo started showing off the Wii (or even talking about the “Revolution”). Hell, anybody who ever used to go hang in Kentia Hall during E3 would see a flood of devices by companies trying to break into the industry. Granted many of them were silly gimmicks, but it illustrates that the landscape was hardly barren before Nintendo stepped foot into it.
If you wanted to talk about an innovative videogame company, then you should be bowing to Sega not Nintendo. Even then, there are so many companies and individuals that have contributed innovation in videogames that there really is no one company that one should bow to. What you could give credit to Nintendo for though, is bringing such projects to a wider audience and making it more acceptable. Still, I’d like to see the folks behind TrackIR get a little more recognition rather than this being something more of a fruit of Nintendo’s labors.
Yes, my hero… Well not quite, but I have been an immense fan of NanaOn-Sha’s work; so when I heard Masaya Matsuura was going to be speaking at GO3 I was excited about it, yet at the same time bummed ’cause I wasn’t going to be there to see it (I’d seem him speaking at GDC several years back). Luckily Gamasutra posted a nice synopsis.
Got a new toy from the girlfriend as a late birthday present. So far not too bad. I certainly found the packaging to be rather nice (not something I’d expected). Anyways, it wasn’t something I wanted so much for running emulators or stuff like that (which is what seems to be the most popular use for the system (along with it’s predecessor (the GP32) and the homebrew hacking on the PSP). Nor was it as a collector’s item to play the paltry amount of native games on it, nor use it as a poor man’s portable media player. No I mainly bought it to do a little handheld tinkering and development. PSP homebrew is nice, but without official endorsement you always feel like you’re climbing through mud, uphill. I’m not really interested in emulators (I prefer the original hardware (MAME is the only real exception for me), nor do I feel like having to reverse engineer everything and then figure out why things break. Nor do I feel like bricking my PSP. This really isn’t a slight against PSP homebrew (although it may seem as though it is). No, it’s really about having an environment you can play in. Having nice devtools (or just decent ones). Sure you don’t have a fancy CPU or GPU to mess with. But it’s no slouch. Besides, it’s mostly for prototyping little ideas for handhelds that I have that I can legitimately show off (Nintendo & Sony ususally aren’t too thrilled when you show up with an idea that’s running on their hacked systems (even if it is cool)). On to the hardware. While it looks quite nice in pictures (and it’s not bad hardware either), when you hold it, it does feel a little cheap (it’s pretty light until you put the batteries in it). I think it’s mostly down to the type of plastics though and the controller nub. The screen is pretty nice though, although the menu/UI feels a bit on the “roughâ€Â side (sorta reminds me of my Modix HD-3510). Boot time is a little long and the UI navigation is a bit clunky to boot (no pun intended). The video playback is a bit spotty. Depends on the video, but even within the supposed parameters, it still seems to drop frames. That’s usually a gripe I’ve had with DivX, XviD and the lot with hardware decoders. On a nice note, it does use AA batteries and comes with some rather nice 2500mAh AA batteries. Good thing too ’cause it’ll tear though alkalines as quickly as 10min depending on what you’re doing (e.g. having the CPUs clocked up to 240MHz+). Well that’s all for now… I’ll see what comes about after I start playing with the SDK.
