360 to Wii: Anything you can do, I can do better
by Ross Miller 
{ May 17th 2006 at 9:55PM }
We saw what Sony's PlayStation 3 EyeToy can do in terms of motion technology (as well as its upgraded PS3 remote), and we know Nintendo's primary console feature is its motion-sensored remote, but what about the Xbox 360? Aaron Stanton of About.com visited the GestureTek booth in Kentia Hall at last week's E3 to learn about a new development kit to use with the Xbox 360 camera. Not only can it map your face to a character model, but with GestureTek's technology the Xbox 360 camera can accurately track a player's movement, including specific finger usage.To further impress, GestureTek demonstrated for Stanton how the technology can emulate each Nintendo Wii game on the show floor. The technology is impressive, of course, but as Stanton points out not likely to surpass the Wii. Simply put, the GestureTek demo is just that -- a demo. And on top of that, technology for a peripheral, which can be easily ignored by developers. It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft and Sony use their respective cameras to match Nintendo's features, but if Sony's press conference is any indication (Sony just glazed over its EyeToy demo), we doubt it.
[Thanks, Eric Stoben]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
brian fantana @ May 17th 2006 10:03PM
Could'nt they just use the controller in conjunction w/ the camera to get pretty the same result as PS3 and to some extent the Wii.
The Wii could still do more with the motion senors, but I'd think the PS3's goofy ass tilt controller could easily be duplicated on the 360 w/ a camera and controller.
karmaghost @ May 17th 2006 10:04PM
"The technology is impressive, of course, but as Stanton points out not likely to surpass the Wii. Simply put, the GestureTek demo is just that -- a demo." So this kind of makes your headline misleading, despite having the "360 to Wii" statement. It makes it sound like Microsoft has come up with a superior input device, which they haven't.
TheBlunderbuss @ May 17th 2006 10:05PM
About.com is riddled with spyware and doesn't get my approval.
About the camera: I could see it used in conjuncture with Live to produce another element of contact, or it could be more dangerously used for deviant things.
Edmund @ May 17th 2006 10:05PM
It's possible but I doubt that camera can match the responsiveness and acuracy of the Wii controller. And having two hands on one controller would restrict what kinds of movements the player could do. I don't think the Wii really has anything to worry about.
bubka @ May 17th 2006 10:06PM
0 = the number of successful consol add-ons in history
The Guru @ May 17th 2006 10:07PM
Why are you using the old Xbox 360 camera picture?
I think this is pretty cool and I'll be picking one up, but I doubt that it'll surpass the wiimote.
And by the way, the ps3 demo with the camera and cards that create the monsters, I thought that was a neat idea, althouh I won't be participating in that one.
Siliconera @ May 17th 2006 10:14PM
We saw the demo at E3 and spoke to GestureTek about it. They casually mentioned "Halo 3" in their presentation and how Bungie's next game might track head movements for a look around. We also videotaped the demo:
http://www.siliconera.com/2006/05/15/how-the-xbox-360-camera-might-be-used/
J B Cougar @ May 17th 2006 10:17PM
bubka is of course being sarcastic
Zapper light gun anyone? Kudos for attempts at trendy Internet smarminess however. Also, NES Advantage, NES MAXX and of course any of the four player multi devices that came out for any number of systems in the past 15 years.
All add-ons in the their own right, and all successful. But who's counting when you can score scathing sarcastic barbs such as this one in the instantaneosly gratifying Internet age?
GTG @ May 17th 2006 10:17PM
Can it tell which finger I'm holding up right now?
Ah, flailing games...much like karaoke, the only remotely acceptable excuse for such behavior is drunkeness.
Morgon @ May 17th 2006 10:17PM
"0 = the number of successful consol add-ons in history"
Assuming all additional input methods can be considered 'add-ons' (i.e. the Power Glove and PowerPad are probably considered as Add-ons), then you didn't take the GameCube's Wavebird into account.
Also, the GameBoy Player is most certainly an add-on, and I think it did pretty okay for itself for what it was.
Tim @ May 17th 2006 10:22PM
Expansion Pak for N64. Everyone with half a testicle or more bought one of those. I had two thanks to that stupid donkey kong bundle.
MetaHuman @ May 17th 2006 10:33PM
I got one disadvantage for the camera: MULTIPLAYER. It's a popular aspect in many of Nintendo's games. The camera sounds like it can do so much for ONE person, but can it detect motion for 4, or would you have to plug 4 cameras in? Haha.
;)
How 'bout companies stop saying they can do what anyone else can and just make the dang games?
Also, MODELING your face (say like in a wrestling game WWE DoR is awesome!) is waaaay past just mapping and more fun, in my opinion. I understand the concept and I wanted to use it for Freedom Force but I didn't have a scanner or camera, but modeling them with an interface made for gamers (like the wrestling game example) is good fun. Besides, if I don't want to model myself, I can model whoever I want, like Reggie, Steve Ballmer, or Chuck Norris. LOL
Phil @ May 17th 2006 10:40PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Now let's see if all the Xbox fanboys who said Sony were evil and crazy and stupid and how they hated Sony because they "ripped off Nintendo!" now that MS rips off Sony's EyeToy AND the Wii!
JJ @ May 17th 2006 10:52PM
OMG MS is ripping off of Nintendo!
Lets start 80+ articles on how MS is evil now! (But then which giant multinational Corporation isn't? Sony, MS... they'll all come for you in the middle of the night and steal your children!..... and they'll kick your dog too! and then Bill gates will personally break all the pencils in your house and Ken Kutaragi will go through your wallet and chastise you for being poor!....God they're so evil.)
=p
EJFLEX @ May 17th 2006 11:06PM
"10. Expansion Pak for N64. Everyone with half a testicle or more bought one of those."
Hilarious.
ozymandias @ May 17th 2006 11:06PM
Phil:
I think web cams were around before the eye toy and thats exactly what this is. Just because it can do other things doesnt mean that being a web cam isnt its primary function.
Hey Alex @ May 17th 2006 11:08PM
Glad you finally wrote about this! I caught the demo and was pretty impressed. Basically, instead of using a controller, you can track movement via the camera.... which is really like the EyeToy
However I noticed in the demo you could control a item on the screen, whereas EyeToy has been having you intergrate with the action.
Anyway, pretty cool technology
Mikeawesome @ May 17th 2006 11:14PM
I think, despite the EyeToy's lackluster performance, this will do considerably better. Mainly because it's especially tantalizing to those on Live. I know I wouldn't mind having some sort of Vid-conferencing in a little window to the north of my screen, much like they did in GRAW with character viewpoints.
Noel @ May 17th 2006 11:22PM
I think you guys are missing bubka's point (and Ross's original point for that matter). The camera is an add on, so there may be a couple games that use it, and maybe even one them will not completely suck.
With the Wii (and ps3 controller), the motion detection is part of the core system. As such, every game for these systems can, and should, take advantage of this extra dimension.
On a similar note, the PS3 has the blue-ray advantage as well. XBox and Wii games will forever be limited to the storage capacity of a regular DVD, no matter what add-on they create. The PS3 will be able to grow into Blue-ray's storage capacity. If the PS3 can survive okay for the first year or two after launch, it has a good chance of outpacing the Wii and XBox in the long term.
justchris @ May 17th 2006 11:25PM
This is excellent technology, but I think you're missing the main place where it pales in comparison to Wii.
Wii is a mass market device, it's aimed at everyone. It's advantage in that race is the fact that it does, in fact, use a controller. Certainly, the camera can emulate most, if not all, the abilities of the Wiimote. The difference, is, there's no feedback except on screen. For most people that's offputting, if not downright impossible. For hardcore gamers, we can manage, but most people need something in their hand to feel like they're actually doing something.
MosquitoControl @ May 17th 2006 11:30PM
Oh man. It depends on the definition of success. I consider something a success if there's software to support it. No console add-on has had significant software support. Those that have were minor add-ons that weren't necessary to the games.
1) Zapper. You think this was successful? It was mostly bundled with Duck Hunt. Wild Gunman, Gumshoe and Hogan's Ally used it. A tiny amount of other, mostly unsuccessful games used it. So... a bundled game, a few third party games, and you call it a success? Most successful, but not a success. It's worth mentioning that few people bought this separately, it was bundled with the system. All initial runs came with it, and many later runs. So it's not even really an add-on.
2) NES Advantage, NES Maxx. These don't count. They're just redesigned controllers, not add-ons. They did nothing the original controllers couldn't (outside of turbo and the lame Advantage slowmo,) and no game supported them specifically.
3) Multiplayer adapters. Ok, were any of these widely supported? The Genesis had two different ones, both mostly ignored. Can anyone name 5 4-player games for any system, not counting EA sports games? Not successful.
4)Gameboy Player. Doesn't really count, again. Nothing was specifically designed for it. More correct would be the GBA cable for the Gamecube. Which wasn't really supported. Not successful. The PSP/PS3 connection will be the same.
5) N64 Expansion Pak. 2 games required it, both 1st party. 2 games required it for full features, one of which was first party. And 15 or so games used it for minor improvements. Not terribly successful, but more than most. Why? Because it wasn't needed.
Bottom line - there has never been a successful, necessary 3rd party add-on for a console. Never. 32x? SegaCD? Powerpad? SNES mouse? SuperScope? All flops?
Game developers are loathe to incorporate a device they can't guarantee everyone has. They don't want someone to pick up a box, look and see it requires a device they don't have and therefore put it back down.
The camera could be different. I doubt you'll see many games requiring it. But, like the N64 expansion, you'll probably see a decent amount of games incorporating it. Just for tiny, minor things that slightly enhance gameplay without really changing it.
MosquitoControl @ May 17th 2006 11:32PM
"On a similar note, the PS3 has the blue-ray advantage as well. XBox and Wii games will forever be limited to the storage capacity of a regular DVD, no matter what add-on they create. The PS3 will be able to grow into Blue-ray's storage capacity. If the PS3 can survive okay for the first year or two after launch, it has a good chance of outpacing the Wii and XBox in the long term."
Meh. Doubt it.
For one, games aren't filling DVDs yet.
For another, swapping DVDs isn't a very big deal. You had to swap with the GC version of RE4. You got up once, switched discs, never did it again. Not a big deal, not worth paying $100 extra to avoid.
And lastly, developers won't make drastically different versions of most games for the 360 and PS3. So for the majority of games, they'll be restricted to DVD size even though on a BluRay disc. It just isn't going to be cost effective to make a separate, larger version for the PS3.
CUBS-BEARS-BULLS-RULE @ May 17th 2006 11:43PM
wat i am wondering is if the ps3 game will be overly expensive to buy sense they will be on blue ray disc which cost more blank dvd $1 and a blank blue ray disc $10 they will probably be $70 and up i could careless if blue ray holds more space hd dvds hold more space than a dvd but thats not in the 360 but u don't use the entire memory of a blue ray disc so why not use hd dvd's for games to play on. i can see the 360 getting rid off the core sytem and making a new premium that comes with an hd dvd player built in but i dought it because it would suck for the people/me who but system when it came out but look at the newer ps2 but thats not a big diiference maybe 360 would just include the drive but not change the game format idk tell me wot u think refer to me by my number
Tukka @ May 17th 2006 11:45PM
MC's point is valid. Though a few addons have been moderately successful in terms of sales, very few have seen widespread support among 3rd parties in developing software.
This is why Nintendo was wise to include the Wii-mote as the "standard" controller for the system. It forces developers to acknowledge and use it, if they want to develop for the system at all. Even with its apparent supriority over even sophisticated webcams like the X-Box Camera, it would have been all but completely ignored by developers, I'd bet, if they were not assured that it would be included with the system.
This seems pretty well evidenced by the fact that nobody seems to be developing games on the Wii for the well-established gamepad, because Nintendo has not indicated that they will be including one with their system. This could be because they are waiting for Nintendo to officially unveil their "shell" controller addon, but developers could easily develop Wii games for the "classic" controller or the GameCube controller.
dsub @ May 17th 2006 11:46PM
some of you idiots need to read the damn article. Especially you phil. This is not MS saying this, it's gesturetek, the company that designed the technology and developer kits to support the camera. You make it sound as if Peter Moore announced that the 360 camera can do everything the Wii can. They did nothing of the sort. He even went as far as to say the Wii controller is still better.
I swear, I think some of you fanboys just read the headline and then your blatant fanboyism takes over and the pointless, unwarranted hate begins.
Also, I don't mean to sound like a troll, nor do I like to criticize joystiq, but this headline is totally misleading. The person that said this stuff wasn't even an MS employee. They work for gesturetek. A more proper title would have been "gesturetek to Wii: anything you can do I can't do better". Your title makes this sound like the guy said the 360 could do motion sensing better than the Wii, yet in the article you directly quote the guy as saying...The technology is impressive, of course, but as Stanton points out not likely to surpass the Wii. So I don't get it? The guy says it's not better than the Wii, but according to your headline...one would assume he's claiming it is better?
Anyways...in no way at all is MS trying to market the 360 camera as a competitor of the Wii controller...so I don't know why this guy even makes the comparison.
Kireblade @ May 17th 2006 11:51PM
Yeah, add ons are never successful, like Guitar Hero and DDR...
...wait...
n3rrd @ May 18th 2006 12:06AM
Blu-Ray is a nice idea, but not entirely necessary. Due to better hardware in the XBox, GTA takes up less space on a DVD for the XBox than it does for the PS2.
Thus, if you continue along with that trend, using encoding software provided by Microsoft and upgraded hardware/decoders, you can further compress data with minimal losses. It's definately not the final solution, but it's much less expensive than an entirely new optic-drive technology.
I personally wish that Sony would have flayed out the EyeToy idea a little more. I think it's a neat concept and could be taken advantage of to provide a very interesting experience. Maybe Microsoft will make proper use of it this time around. Maybe the competition will force Sony to push it harder.
Games are about being entertaining. Graphics help enhance the experience, but that is the one feature that is garaunteed to improve with every generation.
Part of the fun of arcade games is the different ways you interact with them; whether it be a light gun, a guitar style controller, a dance pad, etc. they all help to enhance the experience of the game.
Part of the reason that I am so excited about the Wii is that I can finally try playing games in a new way. I'm not convinced that it will be perfect, and it definately won't change the entire industry, but I like the option of having something different.
The hostility towards their controller is strange because we should embrace every method of gaming available to us, as gamers. Bring on the new webcam based control methods, I say!
We need new and interesting ways to control games to go along with new and creative stories, and shiny graphics. Teamed up with regular control systems, we can't lose.
MosquitoControl @ May 18th 2006 12:14AM
"Yeah, add ons are never successful, like Guitar Hero and DDR...
...wait..."
Those are games, not add-ons.
Just like the Arkanoid stick for the NES.
Can you name any game other than Guitar Hero or DDR that uses the guitar or pad?
No. No you can't. They're each supported by one line of games. And they're popular because of those games.
This is not the same case. Now, if Sony released a guitar and hoped someone would use it, then yes, you could make the argument.
This is also why I hope Nintendo bundles a classic remote with the Wii... so more developers go the SSBB route.
32_Footsteps @ May 18th 2006 12:18AM
Okay, I do love a challenge. Name peripherals that had any sort of success, eh?
Well, I think you're a bit too quick to write off the Zapper. Quite simply, lots of people had it and played with it.
Also, it's completely fair to include the Game Boy Player (and its ancestor, the Super Game Boy) as add-ons - they added functionality to the system that didn't exist before.
Now, for multi-player adaptors... Let's see...
The NES Satellite (or the Four Score, if you preferred that one) worked with Super Spike V-Ball, Smash TV, Nintendo World Cup Soccer, Swords & Serpents, and M.U.L.E.
The Super Multi-tap for the SNES worked with Super Bomberman, Super Bomberman 2, Secret of Mana (and between those three alone, you had a winning peripheral), Lord of the Rings, and Top Gear 3000. I'll take that as two successful 4-player adaptors.
Beyond that, let's count the games that work with floor mats built for the Playstation consoles (as every floor mat I've seen works for both PS1 and PS2 systems): DDR, DDR Konamix, DDR Disney Rave, DDR Max, DDR Max 2, DDR Extreme, Karaoke Revolution Party, DDR Extreme 2, and Jungle Book: Rhythm & Groove. Not all of those were sterling, but enough were hits that you have to say the peripheral was a success.
Hey, I mentioned Karaoke Revolution. That line made a hit out of the USB microphone for the PS2, though SOCOM was using those first. That's 5 games of Karaoke and 3 SOCOM games, all of which did well. That's another success.
Of course, then there's the Gibson SG Controller. Though only one game so far has come out using it, a sequel to Guitar Hero is months away from kicking all our asses. And that was so successful for RedOctane, Activision acquired the company (though the deal won't be finalized for a couple months).
Also, for good measure, I'd like to throw out another add-on to a system's basic setup that caught on really well - the Dual Shock controller for the original Playstation. So successful, it became the standard on the sequel, and the entire design (minus the vibration effects) is copied in the current incarnation of the Playstation 3 controller.
And that's not even getting into low-level successes, like the Super Scope, the GunCon, the Power Base Converter, the Bongo Controller, the GameCube dance pad, the Power Pad, and probably a couple others that people around here will bring up.
And really, if peripherals were such failures, why do so many companies attempt to make them? You'd think the constant failure would discourage nearly everyone from making them. Unless, of course, peripherals *are* successful and profitable for the companies that make them.
CUBS-BEARS-BULLS-RULE @ May 18th 2006 12:27AM
#27 guitar hero and ddr r add ons they r games but the guitar is an add on u don't need it to play the game they could have made it where u use a ps2 controller same with ddr. Eye toy is an add on and it uses games so will the xbox live vision cam use games(will/can be used for normal games such as halo 3 with moving ur head in the game when u move ur head) and nintendo's entire system has to do with the wiimote so of course its going to come with the system
MosquitoControl @ May 18th 2006 12:30AM
"Unless, of course, peripherals *are* successful and profitable for the companies that make them."
But not for the people that buy them.
Outside of ones bundled with games they very rarely get much support.
No support = no success.
Maybe success for the manufacturer, but if I spend $50 for a light gun and get three games to use it with, I'll be annoyed.
Especially with official product releases. These come with the promise of more games. Said games never come.
Look at the ROB. This was bundled and left wholly unsupported. Nintendo even admits support was never really planned.
Cloud @ May 18th 2006 12:39AM
It's a great idea but it's no Wii.
CUBS-BEARS-BULLS-RULE @ May 18th 2006 12:43AM
-racing wheels for racing games(add on) people buy them they make a profit
-gun same as racing wheel people buy it can only use it in gun games but have fun think of using it in resident evil sweet
-eye toy/xbox vision cam people bought eye toy and made a profit and people will buy xbox vision cam for live video chat(just cuz of that they will buy it) and the games to so i am %99.9 sure it won't fail
jonat3 @ May 18th 2006 1:00AM
It's what you understand under "success". If a pheripheral enjoys "success" for a company, that doesn't mean that particular success is relevant from a consumer standpoint. Most of the pheripherals that are listed are only used by a select few titles. Bottomline is while considered "succesful", they could not ever be that important for the general consumer, because most of the games simply don't support them. There are HUNDREDS of games and most of these "successes" that are listed don't even support games that number above 10 titles.
The pheripherals that have the most chance of succeeding, are the first party pheripherals, like the wavebird and of course like mentioned, the dual shock controller. Because they are produced by the companies themselves, they have a bigger chance of becoming standardized. Since the only difference between the wavebird and a normal controller was it's wireless funtionality, it automatically supported all the games that came out for GC. So it's success is not so surprising. The dual shock controller while starting out as a pheripheral, was later included with the PS thus could no longer be considered a pheripheral, but standard equipment. And it is for that reason that it enjoyed success. That is why the dual shock cannot be really used as an example of why a pheripheral can be succesful.
Third party pheripherals do not tend to enjoy the kind of success as listed above. Which is also the point of this discussion. The only way any eyetoy like pheripheral can ever hope to compete with the wiimote, is if it's included with the console hardware from the very start. Because only then will ALL the developers take the risk to support that particular feature (like they did with the dual shock). A pheripheral which is supported by only a fraction of total games is NOT relevant for the general consumer, even if it's considered a success by that company that releases it.
V1L3 @ May 18th 2006 1:13AM
I haven't thought much of the Eye Toy games on the PS2 so far.
That said, I really wish either Microsoft or Sony would pack one of these cameras in WITH the console. Make it a feature of the console, not an add-on. That way, when a developer brings out a game, they can say "Well, the PS3 has this camera with it, so we can make use of that in our game, either as an alternate control method, or just for some mini-games."
To be honest, I think Sony's best defence against the Wii isn't be the PS3, but the PS2.
Bring out a collection of sports games, etc, that use the Eye Toy to full effect and then release a PS2 + Eye Toy + games compendium for a cheaper price point around Christmas. Hell, throw in a plastic table tennis bat if you think people need to be holding onto something.
Sure, hardcore gamers would notice the difference, but casual/non-gamers wouldn't. Besides which, Virtua Tennis 2 on the PS2 looks miles better than the tennis game in Wii Sports.
brian fantana @ May 18th 2006 1:20AM
About the third party support.
Xbox Live was horrid on Xbox. Now your hearing how everyone is making games for it. Maybe, just maybe, the eyetoy was say like , Xbox Live for Xbox. And, the USB Camera can be (for developers)the Xbox Live for 360. It just depends on how they implement it and how good the tools are for doing this.
Wes @ May 18th 2006 1:21AM
It's all about how much support the product gets. Sony could have cleaned up with alternative input, last generation making Nintendo look like a copy cat had they actually backed the EyeToy. Several high quality "real" games for the EyeToy never made it to the states. Bakufuu Slash! Kizna Arashi and Monkey Mania are just a few examples. Eyedentify shown at E3 last year, is missing in action. And this years E3 demo of the EyeToy was given 3 minutes, and the game is only confirmed by Japan. Thus the eyeToy is stuck in mini-game hell.
I look forward to seeing Microsoft rob Sony of their inovatition that could have been, if they give me some real games using it.
Angus @ May 18th 2006 2:29AM
This is what I love about being mainly a PC gamer, any add-on or peripheral I buy I can use with pretty much any game thanks to programs like PIE (Programmable Input Editor) and that PC games generally allow for customized controller input.
As far as successful console add-ons though.. meh.. I dunno.
I'm hoping that Microsoft can pull this off and make this successful though, especially as far as stuff like Augmented Reality is concerned. I'd LOVE to see that stuff become more commonplace. Also, really hope Nintendo hops on the bandwagon and gets its own camera. Crossplatform camera games anyone?
OyoyoY123 @ May 18th 2006 3:53AM
byebye nintendo
Jon @ May 18th 2006 4:17AM
The Wii controls will get old really Qick. It's all fun and games until after the first few titles. That controller is going to get old real quick.
Think of games like Gears of War...innovation without a gimmicky controller. A game like GOW can't even be experienced with the Wii controllers poor FPS controls.
Nintendo is trading one type of innovation for many others. There's only so much you can do with this thing. It will get old real quick. And the sad joystick that complements the Wii for more traditional games is a throwback to the original NES controller...what a mistake.
I can only see 3rd parties fleeing the Wii faster than they fled the Cube. You Wii fans better hope Nintendo can spit out 1st party titles quickly...cause that's all your going to get for many years to come.
justchris @ May 18th 2006 4:48AM
Nintendo did have a camera peripheral. It was the gameboy camera. The first non-gameboy use for it Nintendo had planned was for Perfect Dark. They were going to allow you to take pictures of yourself and your friends and map the faces to character models in Perfect Dark. A feature which got canned because some parent organizations criticized them for doing this (But I WANT to shoot my friends! They deserve it!).
I remember this cause I was really excited about it. I actually considered buying the gameboy camera until they caved and took the feature out.
Oh, and Jon, a gimmick is usually a good thing. All that innovation you talk about in Gears of War, it's all gimmicks. I don't know how people decided gimmicks were a bad thing. Also, to be noted, all those great innovations in Gears of War not only would work on the Wii, but would work just as well, if not better, with the Wiimote (depending on your control preference). Innovations made with certain Wii games can only work with the Wiimote (or possibly the 360 camera) because while it has the same functionality as a regular controller (with 4 buttons instead of 8), it also has functionality a regular controller lacks.
Jaguarandine @ May 18th 2006 4:49AM
How about the PC Engine?
Yimtaka @ May 18th 2006 6:38AM
I think the main disadvantage of the camera on both the eye toy and the new xbox360 camera is that they are light sensitive so if the lighting isn't good then you will get bad feedback whereas with the wiimote i don't think you would have those problems. So with the wiimote you could theoretically play in the dark with the lights off and you can't do that with the eytoy or the xbox360 camera.
Also of note is that the cameras can't differentiate between you the person who's playing the game and your brother/sister who might be walking past in the background so you might be playing and them walking past might have ruined your game whereas with the wiimote you don't have that problem at all.
GamerG @ May 18th 2006 6:52AM
I saw this being demo'd on the tv, it was pretty impressive as it was able to track things very well.
Perhaps if you had perhipials like a sword or a gun it could be set to track those items as well and could then be use to play Wii like games??
Christopher Doyle @ May 18th 2006 7:23AM
@21: I think you need to lay off the caffeine.
Kazi @ May 18th 2006 8:53AM
The 360 Camera might not be able to mimic everything the Wiimote does, but it goes the other way around too. The idea of mapping your individual fingers and able to detect when you turn your head sounds like it has a pot full of possibilities. I've had an idea for the Wiimote for Star Wars games (I loved Republic Commando, which is where the idea spans from), after the gyros in the nunchuck attachment were announced, in which I thought it would be extremely cool to have a game where you moved your nunchuck to relay messages to your storm trooper partners (rather than a menu). With the idea that the camera can map each individual finger this can be taken even further and succesfully combine the FPS genre with the stratigy genres and still keep a fast pace and indepth gameplay. Which is almost just as cool as the poker game that made a model in your likes by taken pictures of you and the card game Sony showed at e3.
Kye @ May 18th 2006 9:08AM
"Virtua Tennis 2 on the PS2 looks miles better than the tennis game in Wii Sports"
I wonder which one is more fun to play though.
Hmmm...
"A game like GOW can't even be experienced with the Wii controllers poor FPS controls."
You sir, are a complete idiot.
Paul Cosgrove @ May 18th 2006 9:11AM
While I don't doubt the XBox360 camera will have some decent uses after a while, I'm not so sure it'll ever be able to provide the same kind of experience as a Wiimote - and I'm a little skeptical of their claim that it can pick out individual finger movements.
It won't have any depth perception either, unless they get two cameras working together. But then, who'll need more than one webcam?
bertram @ May 18th 2006 9:58AM
Am I the only one frightened by inanimate objects that can "see" me? These "gaming" consoles will be the reconnaissance officers in the first wave of the impending robot uprising. Okay, nothing that drastic, but it does look a bit HAL-ish.
spike @ May 18th 2006 11:04AM
The title of the article is a bit misleading as well, it brings the notion of Microsoft using an end around peripheral to go up against the Wiimote, which is obviosly not the case. They are just stating what you can possibly do with the technology inside the camera. If anything, it allows a game developer to add an extra whistle to the gameplay of their title if you happen to purchase the camera. I really don't see the camera as becoming a stardard for gaming for the 360.