Technology behind the Wiimote

steviec

I've said in a couple of threads that I was a bit disappointed with the Wii showing over E3, with the games being nothing close to the revolution that Nintendo were hyping and instead being a combination of gimmicks and games with standard gameplay that merely replaces button presses with gestures.

Anyway, this article may possibly explain why. It's a site I know nothing about and it's something that no other games site seems to have reported, but what they say does make logical sense to me and could explain a lot so I'm taking it at face value.

To sum up the article, in it's current form, the Wiimote is simply a pad with a gyro in it, much like the PS3, so it can detect movement. In addition, it has an IR at the top which means when you point it in the direction of the sensor(and only in the direction of the sensor) it knows where it's pointing, but not its position in 3d space. In other words, its a lightgun that also happens to have motion sensors built in. It does not, as Nintendo said it does, know where it is in 3d space or track its position at all times.

Which explains why I found so many of the games so disappointing. An obvious example being the sword fighting in Red Faction. Where I expected a real sword to move in 3d space as you move the Wiimote, what we got instead was a sword that simply swiped in different directions depending on the gesture detected, no different to pressing a button. And the reason for this, it now seems, is that the technology simply can't do any better.

At the bottom of the article I linked, it says that Nintendo have made a deal with some other company involved in motion sensing technology, that could lead to an overhaul of the Wiimote into something closer to what it should have been before launch. I hope it succeeds, it could mean the difference between a short lived gimmick and a truly revolutionary new way of playing games.

Giblet

It can't be true because some of the wario ware games had a virtual hand in the game which you could move in all directions, pull in and out, tilt, turn left and right.

steviec

Giblet wrote:

It can't be true because some of the wario ware games had a virtual hand in the game which you could move in all directions, pull in and out, tilt, turn left and right.

Yea but how accurate was it? Sony got their flying joypad to do that at their press conference, its easy to loosely calculate based on the acceleration of the controller, but its still nowhere near as accurate as true 3d positional sensing would be.

CiDeRmAn

So, you're having a moan at a controller you have not even held yet?
Thats a bit foolish no?
Surely you should wait until you have a go of one before you proceed to take issue.
Surely the way it works is less important than the way it allows you to interact with the software, something that in Metroid Prime 3, Zelda and Mario Galaxy it seems to accomplish quite well.
I assume you are only privy to the same footage as the rest of us, so I fail to see how you can draw such critical conclusions.
The article you quote is also full of speculation about the precise functioning of the Wii controler so you are dissappointed with one persons own soeculations about the device, I believe that called hearsay and a very bad thing to base any conclusions that can be taken seriously, certainly the majority of E3 reports of the Wii have been glowing, it has been the toast of the show, pushing the PS3 and 360 out of the limelight.
As for the PS3 controller being the same, with the same type of otion sensing technology, hands on reports suggests its nowhere near as polished and responsive as the Wii device, also they removed the rumble feature to permit the PS3 controller to haev motion sensing, a step beack rather than forward no.
The inclusion of both rumble and a speaker should permit the Wii controller a more immersive position in the applicable software, but we shall have to wait to see how it all plays when we can finally get our paws on it, just as judgement will be similarly reserved 'til we try the PS3 controller.

Placebo

but wasnt he flying that plane yoke with the ps3 pad ,
and the duck demo, seemed like it picked up every hint of movement in any direction. is the ps3 pad better than wii?

hairball

It may also be a case the the on screen graphis not accurately representing whats happening with the remote.
For instance the sword fighting part of red steel was visually very u****ressive animation wise..there seemed to be only 2 or 3 animations for the sword no matter what the guy did with the controller.It reminded me of that old neo geo game crossed swords.
Now what WOULD be impressive is if the engine calculated the angle of the controller and translated that to graphics in real time so that the sword, gun or whatever was viewed from exactly the same angle...maybe thats not possible tho.

monument

As the opening posted says, the PS3 controller for starters doesn’t have a pointer-type directionally sensor (ie it can’t be used as a ‘hand’ pointer, gun etc), so the things it can do that the PS3 cant is wide ranging from the start.

Placebo wrote:

but wasnt he flying that plane yoke with the ps3 pad ,
and the duck demo, seemed like it picked up every hint of movement in any direction. is the ps3 pad better than wii?

It goes from game-to-game, for flying games I'd think the PS3 (but I have not played any on Wii).

GrumPy

monument wrote:

It goes from game-to-game, for flying games I'd think the PS3 (but I have not played any on Wii).

And you have played flying games with the ps3? :rolleyes:

I dont think anyone should assume either pad is better/worse for diff types of games, wait till you hold those bad boys in yer hands, then you shall know. :cool:

Crucifix

I've heard complaints about the sensor. On Gamespot's podcast they were saying it can be awkward depending on your height, and that'll you find yourself stopping to get it alligned.

evad_lhorg

steviec wrote:

Yea but how accurate was it? Sony got their flying joypad to do that at their press conference, its easy to loosely calculate based on the acceleration of the controller, but its still nowhere near as accurate as true 3d positional sensing would be.

eh have you not read anything from the press like ign. it is extremely accurate hence the excitement over it. :rolleyes:

rip2roar

Nintendo won E3 2006 with Microsoft far behind and the Ps3 in a close third.
You should have seen the crowds at the Nintendo stand

monument

Irish GrumPy wrote:

And you have played flying games with the ps3? :rolleyes:

Yes, I have played a game called Warhawk with the PS3's controller. Apparently the 'PS3's were devkits, betas or something like that.

hairball

actually i could imaginre that wipeout style future racer i've seen vids for working well with that kind of controller( ps3's that is)

failsafe

So was the Wiimote at E3 final hardware?

That was in the article when any video's interviews i have seen have nintendo repeatedly saying that it's e3 offering was not the final version, and that the wii consoles in the demo area's were empty shells for show, with the real processing going on behind the scenes.

Balfa

steviec wrote:

To sum up the article, in it's current form, the Wiimote is simply a pad with a gyro in it, much like the PS3, so it can detect movement. In addition, it has an IR at the top which means when you point it in the direction of the sensor(and only in the direction of the sensor) it knows where it's pointing, but not its position in 3d space. In other words, its a lightgun that also happens to have motion sensors built in. It does not, as Nintendo said it does, know where it is in 3d space or track its position at all times.

I haven't read the article, but it sounds like it doesn't know what it's talking about.

GPS aside, ships and submarines with accelerometers can tell exactly where they are in 3d space and they're accurate to within feet after a span of months. See, the whole point of accelerometers is that if you know your starting position and you keep track of your acceleration, you can tell exactly where you are.

And knowing the starting position is pretty easy with IR triangulation.

The thing about the sword fighting is more likely down to things like developer inability than hardware inability.

CiDeRmAn

Its been said already but its worth saying again, please withold any judgement of new hardware until you actually have a hold of the finished article this autumn, no sense in making calls you will feel ashamed of in a couple of months.

steviec

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Its been said already but its worth saying again, please withold any judgement of new hardware until you actually have a hold of the finished article this autumn, no sense in making calls you will feel ashamed of in a couple of months.

Exactly. And I was just pointing this out since nearly everyone seems to be wetting themselves over the Wii and using the 'developers need more time' excuse in the face of negative gameplay impressions, while ripping into the PS3, which developers have had even less time with.

Lord Oz

...does this mean no lightsaber games???

steviec

Lord Oz wrote:

...does this mean no lightsaber games???

Here you go

monument

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Its been said already but its worth saying again, please withold any judgement of new hardware until you actually have a hold of the finished article this autumn, no sense in making calls you will feel ashamed of in a couple of months.

What? Not the person who said it to me?...

Irish GrumPy wrote:

And you have played flying games with the ps3? :rolleyes:

I dont think anyone should assume either pad is better/worse for diff types of games, wait till you hold those bad boys in yer hands, then you shall know. :cool:

I have. :cool: [Sic!]

:rolleyes:

steviec

Balfa wrote:

I haven't read the article, but it sounds like it doesn't know what it's talking about.

GPS aside, ships and submarines with accelerometers can tell exactly where they are in 3d space and they're accurate to within feet after a span of months. See, the whole point of accelerometers is that if you know your starting position and you keep track of your acceleration, you can tell exactly where you are.

And knowing the starting position is pretty easy with IR triangulation.

The thing about the sword fighting is more likely down to things like developer inability than hardware inability.

Well I'm a programmer not an engineer so I've no idea about the hardware, but if what your saying is true, then does this mean that the PS3, which also contains accelerometers could do everything the Wii does? If the IR sensor is just used for triangulation and the accelerometers can do everything on their own from that point, surely you just need to give the user a calibration screen asking them to hold it in their preferred position when they turn on and they can go from there.

protos

Well it depends on the programming API that developers are given to work with in the console game development kits.

If they're given raw access to signals coming off accelerometers then most developers aren't going to have the time or patience to do much with that, but if they have a nice managed API which gives them a easy to manage abstract interface to the controller, then developing games will be much less of a strain for the developer.

The hardware is the easy part. Just stick an accelerometer and a sensor into the controller. The hard bit is writing an API which will let developers develop games which can easily use the controller to its full potential.

CiDeRmAn

I think people are more stoked about the Wii controller as we have seen with the DS just what Nintendo can do with new and interesting modes of gaming and ways of implementing these new systems, as for the PS3 controller, I am sure Sony would never push a third rate knock off of someone elses idea upon us but having played pretty much everything for the last god knows how long I just can't see them creating the type of toys/games that will make best use of the technology, they seem to lack the imagination to make really novel games, relying instead on 3rd parties to come up with the goods.

But this is not to be seen as Sony bashing, just a personal opinion of the last couple of years, I mean I love Ico, God of War and Katamari as much as the next guy but can't see Sony producing that level of excellence to take advantage of the new controller, but then, I too will have to wait and see, certainly won;t be buying one straight away, probably be waiting for at least 6 months, in which time I will be playing my 360 and Wii!

hairball

has anyone seen that rumour( well, i take it it's a rumour) about halogen lighting intering with the wii remote sensors?

Vegeta

steviec wrote:

Well I'm a programmer not an engineer so I've no idea about the hardware, but if what your saying is true, then does this mean that the PS3, which also contains accelerometers could do everything the Wii does? If the IR sensor is just used for triangulation and the accelerometers can do everything on their own from that point, surely you just need to give the user a calibration screen asking them to hold it in their preferred position when they turn on and they can go from there.

I actually work for the company with the accelerometers in the wii controller ( I have never worked on them though so am unsure about final application)

Anyway i think the difference between them is that the Wii can sense motion whereas the PS3 can only sense angles of tilt

SO in WarHawk if you tilt left you go left but if you were playing it on the Wii if you pushed the controller forward you'd accelerate and if you tilted it forward you'd dive. Do ya get me

stevenmu

steviec wrote:

Well I'm a programmer not an engineer so I've no idea about the hardware, but if what your saying is true, then does this mean that the PS3, which also contains accelerometers could do everything the Wii does? If the IR sensor is just used for triangulation and the accelerometers can do everything on their own from that point, surely you just need to give the user a calibration screen asking them to hold it in their preferred position when they turn on and they can go from there.

I don't think the IR sensor is just for triangulation. People are saying that it's needed to know you're starting point so the console can know exactly where it is in 3d space, but there's absolutly no need for the console to know that. All it needs to do is moniter movement relative to your starting point, which is what the accelerometers (presumably piezo-electric gyros ?) do.

<pure guesswork>I think the IR sensor is there because the gyros would not be accurate enough to allow the wiimote function as a mouse pointer so when it comes to things like FPSs or other games which require slow accurate mouse like movements (RTS ?) the wiimote will be better, but for gesture recognition they should be pretty equally matched</pure guesswork>

steviec

Vegeta wrote:

I actually work for the company with the accelerometers in the wii controller ( I have never worked on them though so am unsure about final application)

Anyway i think the difference between them is that the Wii can sense motion whereas the PS3 can only sense angles of tilt

SO in WarHawk if you tilt left you go left but if you were playing it on the Wii if you pushed the controller forward you'd accelerate and if you tilted it forward you'd dive. Do ya get me

According to the official statement:

"In addition to the “3-posture-axis” of roll, pitch and yaw, “3-dimension acceleration information (X, Y, and Z)” can be detected in high-precision and in real-time."

So sounds like they're both basically the same, apart from the Wii also acting as a pointing device for FPS games. Which I guess means the likes of Wii sports(which Nintendo confirmed doesn't use the sensor in the article I mentioned at the top) could probably be done just as easily on PS3, which could lead to some difficult situations for Microsoft when it comes to cross platform games in future.

I still don't get why people are so quick to get behind Nintendo on the back of a line up of what with few exceptions could be current gen games with gesture recognition shoved in, while so often proclaiming that the company who brought us Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, Loco Roco, and even Eyetoy, Singstar and Buzz in the last year or two alone are somehow incapable of giving us great gameplay or anything new and interesting. And that's without even touching on third party support which speaks for itself.

monument

Vegeta wrote:

SO in WarHawk if you tilt left you go left but if you were playing it on the Wii if you (pushed the controller forward you'd accelerate) and if you tilted it forward you'd dive. Do ya get me

Yes, and if you take out the accelerate part that's how it currently works on the PS3. It’s brilliant fun.

Vegeta

steviec wrote:

According to the official statement:

"In addition to the “3-posture-axis” of roll, pitch and yaw, “3-dimension acceleration information (X, Y, and Z)” can be detected in high-precision and in real-time."

So sounds like they're both basically the same, apart from the Wii also acting as a pointing device for FPS games. Which I guess means the likes of Wii sports(which Nintendo confirmed doesn't use the sensor in the article I mentioned at the top) could probably be done just as easily on PS3, which could lead to some difficult situations for Microsoft when it comes to cross platform games in future.
.

Oooops that has shut me right up then hasn't it

Ok concerning your last point I am in no way a fanboy of any of the consoles, I will buy a Wii (and prob a 360) because it is cheap and cheerful and the games will prob be cheaper too. I will not buy a PS3 because it is 600 smackaroos and to be honest I cant see myself waving a PS3 controller around like the Wii controller. Its a bit butch for that don't ya think. Imagine trying to play tennis using the PS3 controller as a racket its like pushing a square peg into a round hole

Also sony couldn't keep the vibrate because if the controller vibrates the accelerometers will go nuts. I am amazed Nintendo have figured out a way of doing it (supposedly) and the sound thing is also nice.

If anyone says they couldn't fit the vibrate because of the accelerometers they have never seen an accelerometer, they're tiny tiny tiny

Ciaran500

Vegeta wrote:

Also sony couldn't keep the vibrate because if the controller vibrates the accelerometers will go nuts. I am amazed Nintendo have figured out a way of doing it (supposedly) and the sound thing is also nice.

Immersion (the company that sued Sony for the rumble feature) offered to solve that problem for them, if they paid obviously.

monument

Vegeta wrote:

and to be honest I cant see myself waving a PS3 controller around like the Wii controller. Its a bit butch for that don't ya think. Imagine trying to play tennis using the PS3 controller as a racket its like pushing a square peg into a round hole

Yeah, but in theory the PS3 controller with two hands on it may work better for flight or racing game.

Vegeta wrote:

Also sony couldn't keep the vibrate because if the controller vibrates the accelerometers will go nuts.

Some people have other ideas....

Drop the appeal and we'll help with PS3 rumble - Immersion president
http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17141

eDimensional disputes Sony's PS3 controller claims
http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17279