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Posts Tagged ‘Motion Control’

PlayStation Move ad pulls no motion-controlled punches against Wii, Project Natal

Sony’s VP of Realistic Movements Kevin Butler (boy, does that guy have a large business card) is at it again, this time in a video ad for the PlayStation Move. He’s back from the future to thank us all for the success of the motion control device, and make a few jabs towards Nintendo and Microsoft for their efforts. Here’s a few choice quotes.

• “Because real boxers don’t hit like this [flails arms exasperatingly]“
• “It’s also got what we in the future call buttons, which turn out to be pretty important to those handful of millions of people who enjoy playing shooters, platformers, well, anything that doesn’t involve catching a big red ball.”
• “C’mon, who wants to pretend their hand is a gun. What is this, third grade? Pew, pew, pew.”

Check out the futuristic — or now-eristic, rather — commercial after the break. And if you ask, sorry, we still wouldn’t bet on Kansas City in six.

Continue reading PlayStation Move ad pulls no motion-controlled punches against Wii, Project Natal

PlayStation Move ad pulls no motion-controlled punches against Wii, Project Natal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Move requires only 2MB of RAM, developers breath sigh of relief
While it’s a crying shame that Sony’s PlayStation Move won’t have full four-player support, at least the technology is efficient; our buddies at Joystiq are reporting that the camera-and-wand based motion control game system will only minimally impact game performance. Quizzing Sony’s David Coombes, they found out that the advanced image processing required to make sense of your wild, flailing movements will take only 1-2 MB of RAM. Of course, when you consider that the PS3 has only 256MB of fast XDR memory to begin with, that 2MB isn’t as “insignificant” as Sony would have you believe, but coupled with the company’s claim that the whole shebang takes “under a frame” of the Cell CPU’s processing time, we’re inclined to think it won’t be much of an issue for the end user. Assuming they fix that nasty lag, of course. Check out our full PlayStation Move guide for more details.

PlayStation Move requires only 2MB of RAM, developers breath sigh of relief originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Magic Motion gesture control HDTV remote hands-on

Packed in with LG’s new top of the line LCD, the 3D capable, LED backlit LE9500 is a new RF remote that users wave, Wii-style, to operate the onscreen menus. There’s also a standard IR remote for universal remote compatibility and the very necessary lazy bastards who don’t want to lift their arms to change the channel compatibility. Check out a quick demo from the CES show floor after the break.

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LG Magic Motion gesture control HDTV remote hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s PlayStation motion controller patents venture into abstract realms

We’ve seen plenty of PlayStation motion control patents from Sony, some of them surprisingly similar to what we’ve actually observed of the as-yet-unnamed controller. This new one, however, gets a little odd. The basic structure seems familiar, but Sony’s recently-filed patent application deals with add-ons in wild ways that not even the peripheral-happy folks at Nintendo have envisioned. Our favorite is probably the double-ender (Fig. 6B for those of you following along at home), which is probably the most assured recipe for a little brother’s bloody nose to be run by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office since the longstaff was invented. So, does this mean more cash to shell out for a “full” PS3 motion control experience? We can’t imagine Sony being gung-ho about that strategy in the face of the (as yet) add-on free Project Natal, but we suppose we’ll just have to wait and find out.

Sony’s PlayStation motion controller patents venture into abstract realms originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW First Look: Hippo High Jump

Filed under: App Review

There are beautiful games on App Store and there are fun games on App Store, and there are some games that are cool just because of the story that goes along with them. Hippo High Jump [iTunes link] falls into the categories of strikingly beautiful, somewhat fun, and great back story. The story goes like this.

Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova attended the 360iDev conference a few weeks back and joined in in the iPhone game jam. The jam offered an all-night coding marathon, where “people teamed up and had to build a fully working game in 1 night. We built the first version of Hippo High Dive from 8pm to around 6am the next day.” You can see a video of the early prototype here.

After polishing the game up with the help of their artist pal, Kiril, the pair submitted Hippo High Dive to App Store where it just recently went live.

Costing just a dollar, Hippo High Dive does not offer a huge amount of play flexibility. You basically jump your hippo off a diving board and navigate her through burning hoops to a bucket of water below. I’ll admit I have the attention span of a gnat with ADHD, but the game did not really keep my attention.

The art on the other hand definitely did. The video above does not do justice to the beautiful look of the game. The artistry both retains the original hand-drawn “let’s whip up a game” style while pushing it forward into gorgeous design. The layered three-d effects while “climbing” the ladder as a prelude to the dive took my breath away.

So, in the end, it’s a bit hard to rate the game. I found the actual gameplay a bit meh. My coordination skills are weak at best and this is not the kind of fine motion control I generally enjoy. At the same time, I absolutely adored the visual design. If you’re a game developer, consider hiring that artist.

TUAWTUAW First Look: Hippo High Jump originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BeMoved coffee machine will make you jump for your caffeine fix

Continue reading BeMoved coffee machine will make you jump for your caffeine fix

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

BeMoved coffee machine will make you jump for your caffeine fix originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Square Enix President predicts Wii HD for 2011, doesn’t see big impact for PS3 and Xbox motion controls

Image courtesy of GAME Watch

Sure, they sound like the words of a man who hasn’t begun development of any motion-controlled titles for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, but we’re still intrigued by President of Square Enix Yoichi Wada’s statement (he’s the guy on the left) that the motion control additions to the PS3 and Xbox 360 aren’t that big of deal. He cites the other “pillars” of console use (like video playback) that somehow make motion controls a minor player — though we’d say the Wii’s sales numbers would beg to differ. Speaking of the Wii, Yoichi thinks all three major consoles will start to look rather the same by 2011, when believes the Wii followup will hit the market — in line with other rumors we’ve heard for the “Wii HD.” Three “HD” consoles with similar input options and similar graphics output certainly sounds like a boon for developers, we just hope there are enough similarities in the control systems and enough “impact” in PS3 and Xbox motion control sales to make mega triple-platform motion-controlled blockbusters feasible.

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

Square Enix President predicts Wii HD for 2011, doesn’t see big impact for PS3 and Xbox motion controls originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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