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.