The Public's First Look at Wii 282
isaacklinger writes "Time Magazine reports how it feels to play with the Wii. Overall it's a very enthusiastic review." From the Gamespot coverage: "Grossman traveled to Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, Japan, and was shown the Wii by legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The reporter was especially impressed with the Wii's controller. 'It's part laser pointer and part motion sensor, so it knows where you're aiming it, when and how fast you move it and how far it is from the TV screen ... There's a strong whiff of voodoo about it.'" Update: 05/08 16:50 GMT by Z : Ran into a registration screen when I tried for the original article, but eldavojohn had more luck than I. The original Time article is available for reading.
The Article for the Article (Score:5, Interesting)
For those of you who wish to read the original Time Article [time.com] I was able to read every page without a log in. Why that wasn't linked in the story, I'm not sure.
Unlike the hollow Gamespot article, this one offers a much more thorough and deeper look into games such as: And: There's a lot of good original information inside that article that Gamespot doesn't seem to think is interesting.
Frankly, I enjoy the idea of the controller changing. I feel that the industry has been plagued with bad hardware and also the fear to step away from the norm. The name and design of this system both do that
I feel similarly about the music industry and that's why enjoy bands like the Arcade Fire that introduce instruments like the accordion with straight rock music to escape the guitar + bass + drums = band template. I like to think of myself as open-minded and I'll remain that way until I can experience the Wii first hand.
Furthermore, I'm shocked that Slashdot had the courage to post something that wasn't only making fun of the Wii for it's name! Could it be that we're actually going to get to read about its performance and abilities instead of just griping about its poor name choice? That's outlandish!
Re:A couple weeks later... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A couple weeks later... (Score:3, Interesting)
I know it the name is supposed to appeal to the non-hardcore gaming population, but all of my coworkers (who own video game consoles, but I would not call any of them really hardcore gamers) think the name is stupid and embarassing. So does my girlfriend. My mom and sister think it's silly. Just who is this name supposed to appeal to, because nobody I know personally likes it.
Will I get used to the name? Probably. Do I like having to double-check and rephrase everything I'm about to say about the console so it doesn't sound like a 2nd grader's penis joke? Not really.
I can't wait for tomorrow so there will be something to actually talk and think about regarding the new console besides its horrible name.
Re:The Article for the Article (Score:2, Interesting)
how far it is from the TV screen... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or does it know how far it is away from the console? I can understand that - perhaps the controller gives out a signal that the console can detect, for instance.
Re:The Article for the Article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how far it is from the TV screen... (Score:1, Interesting)
The little signal generators that you put on the sides of your TV, will output a signal that is a function of time. This is really easy to do with some Linear Feedback Shift Registers( LFSR).
The remote has a clock and listens to each signal. It is then able to tell the time difference from the controller to the little signal generators.
Distance = Speed of Light/ time
and so we have the distance from each of the little signal generator boxes. a little triangulation and you know where you are with respect to the little signal generators.
Re:Wii will work.. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) drop it, causing the car to do something completely unintentional
2) shift position (I often change from sitting up/lying down multiple times during a gaming session)
3) have trouble initially calibrating it (anyone who's ever played a space combat sim knows about "shopping cart wheel syndrome")
4) damage it (it may prove to be useless if you can't turn off the motion-sensor) 5) try to play in motion (isn't a big selling point of GB that you can play in the car/on a plane?)
Re:Wii will work.. (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, no controller can escape this fate. Heck, one of my peeves about the PS2 is that the shoulder buttons control which chapter you're on when watching a DVD. More than once, the controller fell, landed on the shoulder buttons, and completely screwed up what I was watching.
"2) shift position (I often change from sitting up/lying down multiple times during a gaming session)"
E3 may tell a different story tomorrow, but from what I've read so far this will not be a problem. Granted, if you're using the remote to point at the screen, that probably will not change. As for positional data, though, it's fairly clear they're using a gestural system (not unlike Opera or FireFox's scheme) to perform movement. A sword swing, for example, wouldn't require that you use an arc of the same distance every time. It's probably just looking at the pitch of the remote to work out if you're swinging or not. To put it a little more simply: I don't think the system is looking at exact spatial distances to work out your movement. You'll probably be able to twirl the remote in between your fingers to get a similar result. (At least this is what reivewers who have tried the controller have stated.)
"3) have trouble initially calibrating it (anyone who's ever played a space combat sim knows about "shopping cart wheel syndrome")"
Mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I can see this exact problem happening just as you've described it. On the other hand, I cannot imagine it being that big of problem. Let's say you 'calibrate' it by pointing the remote at a cursor on the screen three times. Okay, no prob. From then on, when you point at the screen, you see a cursor indicating where it's aiming. At that point, you're not trying to align the remote, but rather you're gesturing for where the cursor should go. In that sense, you could miscalibrate the controller, but it doesn't seem that likely that it'd be the sort of problem that plagues everybody.
"4) damage it (it may prove to be useless if you can't turn off the motion-sensor)"
Erm, you can damage any controller. Lose one button on the PS2 and you're boned. I'll concede, though, that a replacement controller/sensor will likely cost more than a PS2 controller.
"5) try to play in motion (isn't a big selling point of GB that you can play in the car/on a plane?)"
Huh? GB vs. Wii? I'm genuinely confused by this point. There's no mention of playing this system on a plane or in the car. But, I'll take it at face value: The remote is being measured relative to the sensor. The nunchuck uses an acellerometer that would probably be affected by the car turning, but that should be just about it. (Except for the bumping...) I dunno that I'd want to play this system in a moving vehicle. I'll grant you that.
Re:Aerobics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What?! (Score:2, Interesting)
The SNES controller cross is badly designed. Underneath the cross there's some graphite or metal powder glued on. The powder gets worn off after a while making it impossible to move the character. This has happened to most of the powergaming friends I have and I'm not sure how hard SNES controllers are to get nowadays.
Hold on a second! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a great article, but the Gamecube is only placing third in North America... it runs second to the PS2 in terms of worldwide sales, and I believe that Nintendo makes waaaay more money than the Xbox or Playstation divisions. The author could have done a little more research before hand...
Re:Nintendo is *usually* reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A couple weeks later... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Looks like Billy is playing something on the Nintendo."
What it appears Nintendo is aiming for is to abstract themselves away from the standardized video game console moniker. I think that was their goal for years. I know too many people that called their NES, SNES, gamecube, and even their DS simply as Nintendo. Few people called their Dreamcast or Genesis their 'Sega,' and almost nobody calls their PS1 or PS2 their 'Sony.' .
I really don't like the name. Almost nobody I know does. But I'de wager that everbody that gets it will call their friends saying that they got "the new Nintendo."
I also didn't like the name DS either. But I got used to it the longer I owned it. A name's a name. Think about it: xbox - sounds like irc slang for female genitalia. A names a name. They could have called it TD0013 - if the hardware is cool, then any name will stick.
TIME scans (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.infendo.com/uploaded_images/timescans-7 27882.jpg [infendo.com]
Re:Overestimating the Wii? (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, a truly revolutionary control system would track your entire body. Secondly, it would likely require some kind of visual interface that makes you feel like you're there. Either that, or playing a game will be like a dream. You're convinced you're actually in the game world even though you're stationary.
That's like saying that the introduction of airplanes wasn't revolutionary because they can't fly to Mars. I don't think calling Wii's control system "revolutionary" is a stretch, even if it isn't a Holodeck or anything.
Another problem is that gaming is generally a sedentary experience. Not many people are going to be able to stand there waving their arms around for several hours straight. When using a keyboard and mouse we're supposed to keep our wrists in a neutral position, and here we have a device that requires we use our wrists in repetitive motions. Your range of motion is fairly limited, which means your entire arm has to move, which increases exhaustion. Hold a remote control in the air and you'll get a good sense of what's involved.
Excercise is a great thing; anything that encourages kids to work out is good. People are too sedentary. But keep in mind, most people who game for hours on end aren't necessarily looking to move around much. But it also get's a point where you might as well just go out and play sports for real if you need to move that much.
I've also wondered how long a person would be able to play for at a time. I don't think it's going to be that much of an issue, and if peoples' physical limitations keep them from playing for more than a few hours straight, well, that's probably healthy.
On the other hand, while providing a better control scheme it will still lose every to the precision and speed of a mouse in many genres.
Are you so sure about that? We don't know much about the accuracy of the device itself, but I'd imagine that the Wii controller could be more responsive than a mouse. There's no technological reason that its precision should be less than that of a mouse. Furthermore, I'd imagine that the human brain incurs some computational cost when attempting to project movement on a 2D plane into a 3D space. I could honestly see Wii actually being better for twitch games.
It's easy for me to make sweeping, optimistic predictions when nothing has been announced yet. But I don't see any reason to focus on the system's limitations until we actually see what it can do.
Re:The Article for the Article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hold on a second! (Score:2, Interesting)