Monday, December 17, 2007

Intel: Wii 2 may have no controllers



Justin Rattner, chief technology officer with chip manufacturer Intel, has speculated that Wii 2 may do away with controllers altogether. Rattner spoke to Business Week.

Please bear in mind that Intel is not privy to any inside information. Instead, the company is keen on re-entering the videogame industry after IBM snatched the contracts to supply the CPUs for all three current-gen machines.

Intel has talked to console video game makers about using chips that can perform in excess of 1 trillion calculations per second (BusinessWeek.com, 2/12/07) in future products that use cameras to track body motion to control the action, instead of using buttons or joysticks.

"We imagine some future generation of [Nintendo's] Wii won't have hand controllers," says Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer. "You just set up the cameras around the room and wave your hand like you're playing tennis." Intel missed out on supplying chips for the current generation of game systems, and is trying to gain a foothold there.


To me, that does sound awfully familiar to the PlayStation2´s ´Eye Toy´ line of products. But, I guess, that "1 trillion calculations per second" may be some improvement to that technology. However, positioning a camera in my room sounds like a bit of a hassle. Plus I actually prefer holding onto something.

Source: Business Week
Thanks to: Codename Revolution

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Plus I actually prefer holding onto something."

nice one ;)

Tadashi Oshima said...

Unless the cams can read hand movements it's all bullshit.
The next step after the Wiimote should be some kind of sensor that either measures muscle movements, the signals controlling them or the brain producing these signals.
It all boils down to a device that will be worn directly on the body.

Anonymous said...

Maybe some of those calculations will be used by the 3rd patry devs for post-N64 graphics.... ;)

RGB said...

Bring back Nintendo ON?

Heh

Anonymous said...

it would be like stepping into the 3rd dimention compared to the eyetoy. when they say the cameraSSS i think they invisage tracking body movement on all axes instad of sonys lame flat approach.

I agree falafe, without some sort of controler there is no feedback and a gmer using this would feel very self consious. especialy if they had to hold imaginary equiptment i.e guns or rackets.

sounds cool but needs refining.

Anonymous said...

Okay... lets try this one out, lets think of ways how you would control some of the most popular video game genres today

1. FPS
- how do you pull a triger?
- how the hell are you going to pull the trigger
- what about the trigger pulling?

Are we suppose to yell, ratataataaa at some microphone in order to shoot. I don't think the guy really though this one through before he started talkin BS.

Anonymous said...

1 it wont be cameras the only companys stupid enough to go in that direction is sony and microsft
2post above mii why are you using tradition controls to judge wether or not a future control set up will or will not work
3do u even know if the fps type of game will still exist
think outside the box man jesus hasnt nintendo learned u that fact

your like a playstation fan biging up a aged d-pad against the mighty wiimote
THINK OUTSIDE THE DAM BOX

RGB said...

Yeh I agreee with the no-namer above me.

Was about to say something similar.

He had only spoken in brief, and you never know you could just buy a toy gun, or whatever, and it might capture the gesture of your motions.

Just like being a little kid again.

If the guys did go down this road, I am sure there is plenty of ways to make it work.

Anonymous said...

@ grandmaster_b

Then why take a way controllers, if you are just going to change it for a toy... that works like a controller (as it does, it helps you control what happens on the screen).

and @ anonymous above him,

do you really think games will move away from all traditional genres (of which the FPS is the most popular) in the next 10 year, if you do then you might have to rethink that one through.

I still play games that are 15 or more years old, but with this new "control method" you won't even be able to play these kind of games.

sure this sound like fun and something that would be cool and probably would create new kinds of genres and games (and make sport/olympic games into something other than random button smashing)

But I still don't belive that if this was done that it would mean the end of traditional games, my favorite genres are RPG's and Adventure games, and can't really see any kind of control system that would work for RPG's that wouldn't just be random hand waving or something.

For adventure games, like the old point-and-click style adventure games it could work and still be somewhat intuitive, but still, is it really needed, would it actually add anything new to the genre that can't be done with what we have today.

Now that got so long that I wont even re-read it so maybe it's all pointless crap, but I want to end with saying that I'm all for innovation, and this sounds like something that could possibly creat all kinds of new things, I'm just saying that it will be more akin to eye toy (meaning that it will be a expansion for a console and that games will be made specifically to it, not meaning that it will be a quick cash in)

Anonymous said...

Phase 2 followingDiablo 3 Items your Wiimote needs to be some form of sensing unit that will either steps muscle tissue moves, the actual signs managing these people or even the human GW2 Goldbrain creating these types of indicators.