EA Grand Slam developer: MotionPlus is too sensitive

by JC Fletcher on Apr 3rd 2009 1:55PM

EA looks likely to be the first third party to ship games that support the Wii MotionPlus device with Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods 10. The company may even beat Nintendo itself, unless Nintendo decides to announce a release date for Wii Sports Resort, and then ship it, before June. So, presumably, someone working on Grand Slam Tennis has had enough time with the attachment to know what's up.

Thomas Singleton, producer for Grand Slam, said that the device is actually a little too good at registering one-to-one motion. He told TechRadar that "At times it's overly responsive. It had so much fidelity that at times we have limited that fidelity to make it a compelling experience and giving you full total control." So EA reduced the amount of control you have in order to give you "full total control?"

EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis

[Via CVG]

Source

Tags: ea, Electronic-Arts, grand-slam-tennis, motionplus, Nintendo, tiger-woods-10, Wii

Reader Comments (63)

Bullcrap. You can't be more 1:1 than 1:1. And there's no way this is even really 1:1. Dead reckoning has limitations and hype doesn't fix them.

No, you can be more than 1:1 if the thing is borked and overshoots. When it's sluggish, it's below, when it's overshooting, it's above.

If it returns wrong data, it doesn't mean it's too sensitive, it means it's incorrect. There's a difference. Look up what sensitivity means for instruments, it doesn't mean "propensity to return incorrect data".

It's not about being more than 1:1, it's about the fact that 1:1 shows your true lack of ability.
If you aren't a professional player in real life, you will not be one in the game if it tracks you 1:1. Your technique won't be right, your shots will not go where you want them too. So the developers have to take something off of it to deal with your own lack of skill and ability. That's the problem. It measures everything, and that's too much!

1:1 or not. Over sensitive or not. Is EA really the company you want telling you if a tech is good or not? Isn't this the same company that just last month word leaked about how they needed two months and would go over their budget to make Wolfenstein perform properly for the iPhone? Then they proceeded to get schooled while iD extraordinaire Carmack ported Wolfenstein in FOUR FRIGGIN DAYS with the code EA provided him. The same code it would take two months to get up and running and go over budget.

It could give you 1:2 response.
By which it would be more sensitive than real life.

Actually what he was saying 1:1 wasn't what they were looking for. EA does this all the time in their sports games, and they already mentioned doing the same thing in Tiger Woods Wii, what they mean is pretty won't have fun if they don't have exact moves to hit each ball.

"It could give you 1:2 response.
By which it would be more sensitive than real life."

which they could ameliorate if they produced it in 4D.

Give us a scaler in software.

shaky-cam vs image stabilization

that is a good acronym

... analogy?

:)

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I am sure this isn't *true* 1:1 BUT...

Why wasn't this available at the Wii launch?

Cost.

Because nintendo wants you to buy more peripherals, and you will.

Because the Wii was designed to run Wii Sports, and it does. Everything else is a mere after thought.

It's pretty clear the Wii was initially just a new controller for the Gamecube. When you're designing a new controller like that, you don't care if it can't do everything all the other controllers do, if you need what those controllers can do better, use them, you clearly have them.

Once Wii became a new model that comes with no joystick, the crummy motion controls became a huge impediment to making games that require fine control.

No Joystick?

That's like the primary input for most Wii games... how would you move Mario, Link, Samus or any other character in a third person or first person view?

Aparently you forgot that the Nunchuk is used in 85% of the Wii games.

Because the technology didn't exist, and/or it wasn't cost effective to implement. Same reason the GBA took so long to make, after Sega had the Game Gear-- it's technically possible to get that effect, but it requires much bulkier, less effecient, more expensive, etc. etc. hardware, and Nintendo decided they'd rather wait.

It's the same reason you buy new cars, or upgrade your computer, or get a DSi. It's all about incrementally releasing slightly better tech to get the most profit out of it. You don't make money on a perfect product, you make money on all the steps towards it.

The same reason Microsoft decided to release a console that melts: cut manufacturing costs by not using expensive components.

Fernando:
I think your 85% is an exaggeration. Either way, did you notice N ships a wheel with Mario Kart? Did you notice that none of the games in Wii Sports uses the nunchuck stick? Only one uses the nunchuck and it only uses it for motion sensing? How about Excitetruck? Punch Out?

And the idea that the nunchuck shows that N had all this in mind from the start, you are making an assumption that the nunchuck isn't also an afterthought. There is no evidence to back this up.

Nintendo thought what they had was good enough — and, for most games, it is.

From what I read when they first announced the MotionPlus about a year ago, they developed the Wii MotionPlus in response to users' and developers' complaints about the standard motion controls AFTER launch. They can't release it before they realized there was a need, can they? :)

Well done Ls2ls7, you've named only Sports and Racing games, which OBVIOUSLY won't need to use the joystick for anything *sigh*

Fail.

Uh...

... Wait, what?

You're damned if you do...

It makes sense. But he's just worded it badly. What he is saying is that 1:1 is far too accurate for gaming. You don't want to have to program for 1:1 movements because 99% of people don't know how to actually play tennis properly.

What about people like me who do play tennis and would want a true 1:1 tennis game?

You are in the minority, most likely, and therefore it's not cost effective to cater this game to your particular skill-set.

for people like you, there is already a game like that... REAL TENNIS.

Huey2k2: What about people like me who do play tennis and would want a true 1:1 tennis game?

The Wii Remote is nowhere near the same as a tennis racket. While you may think you want 1:1, imagine how much less "feel" you have holding the Wii Remote compared to a tennis racket.

I've played quite a bit of tennis, and when I first read this I felt the same as you. Then I gave it some thought and realized that they are exactly right. Pull out your tennis racket and swing it around a bit, feel the weight of it as your wrist turns and how much control you have. Then compare that to the Wii Remote. Do you still think you want 1:1? Because I don't think I do.

I think the best option is to give you a slider to control the sensitivity.

yeah, i think a sensitivity control would be a good option. if it was really set to 100% 1:1, i can imagine the tennis racquet jittering all over the place with every teensy motion. or maybe you could add weight to the wiimote somehow, but that would get tiring, i suppose.

@ John Perkins

Good point, the weight distribution on the WiiMote would most likely completely throw me off.

"for people like you, there is already a game like that... REAL TENNIS."

THEN WE'D HAVE TO GET UP OFF THE COUCH FUCK THAT I'M LAZY

At least there would finally be a use for all those Tennis Racket and Golf Club wiimote accessories.... ;-)

I snap on the motion plus and I

J*zz in my pants

Jazz in your pants? What?

For those who don't know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4&feature=channel_page

Just think of it as the dead-zone on joysticks, especially when used for racing games. Sure it's reporting the joysticks position accurately but it sure doesn't make it very easy to make it down a straight at high speeds.

Is my Nyko wireless nunchuck going to work with this?
Cause I am going to be mad if it does not.

Nyko licenses the ability to make peripherals from nintendo. If nyko no longer buys that license then nintendo loses money. I would say you are safe.

Good. It is always easier to stabilize something overly sensitive than it is to sensitize something sluggish.

That was the problem with most bad implemntation of motion control. It required far too much effort to do anything. MC is supposed to replace the pushing of a button or stick.

That's why lair's controls sucked. Not responsive enough.

This actually makes sense, especially for a sports game. Imagine if you will actually playing tennis. The racket has a distinct, weighted feel. When it tilts just a little to one side, you can actually feel this. Now when you're holding the Wii Remote, you don't get quite the same feedback. So you may imagine that you're holding it straight, in reality it could be just a little off, giving you undesirable results.

1:1 control would be great if we were using the actual sporting equipment, like golf clubs or tennis rackets where we could accurately feel the position. While it sounds counter-intuitive at first, anyone who's actually played tennis, or golf for that matter, would understand it given further thought.

These concerns are valid, but i think they were disproved in part by the Wii Wheel. I remember people having the same questions about feedback, but the Wheel is, by all accounts, a roaring success.

But the Wii Wheel suffers from the same lack of response as the Wii Remote. If the Wii Wheel were to interpret every single little gesture, you'd have very little control. Even consumer automobiles have some play in the steering wheel so that minute actions don't send you into a tailspin.

I think it is funny that the MotionPlus is too sensitive. That is good because it means that games like Wii lightsaber could be awesome.

Why so much hate for the Wii?

The Wii wasn't designed nor marketed as a graphical powerhouse alternative to XBOX360 and PS3. So why get pissed when it's not?

Wii's aren't stopping you from being able to get your PS3 or 360.

People that buy it seem to like it.

It's like someone who has a new Ferrari getting pissed at someone else's Prius because it's too slow.

Better yet, why are the voices in your head not on the same page as you?

It's because everyone is so used to every console being comparable, and being geared towards the same market (except for the GC, which unfortunately failed). That's changed now, though. Xbox and playstation are still for the "hardcore" gamers, the type of people who take their video games seriously and expect to be taken seriously. The Wii, though, is going in a completely different direction. It doesn't even take itself seriously in comparison to the other consoles, but that's because it's not geared towards the serious gamers. All consoles are toys, but whereas 360 and PS3 are serious, melt your face with action type of toys, like say action figures or something, the Wii is like the slip and slide your aunt always brought out on those hot summer days.

BlaqueBeird,

That was quite possibly the single worst analogy of the 3 consoles I've read yet.

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EA Grand Slam developer: MotionPlus is too sensitive

EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis

Reader Comments (63)

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