With a tilt of your wrists, the dragon you're riding dives toward the water below. With another movement of your hands, as if pulling back on imaginary reins, the scaly beast pulls out of the dive into level flight, flapping its wings.
That's how the unreleased game "Lair" will work on the Sony PlayStation 3, which launched in the U.S. on Friday. Like Nintendo Co.'s Wii console, which went on sale two days later, it uses a motion-sensitive controller in an effort to make games more intuitive to play.
The controllers make a higher level of realism possible, too: in the sports game bundled with the Wii in the U.S., the stick-shaped controller doubles as the handle of a virtual tennis racket or golf club.
The technology behind motion-sensing has been around for a while, but recent technical advances have radically brought down the price -- and the size. The new game controllers are the first gadgets that promise to bring the technology into the hands of millions of people, and manufacturers are now using motion sensors in other consumer products, including cell phones.
The technology is a wonder of miniaturization and precision. Here's how Benedetto Vigna, head of the unit at Switzerland-based STMicroelectronics NV, which makes a motion-sensing chip for Nintendo, explains how it works:
When you wave around the new Nintendo controller, two tiny, flat pieces of silicon inside it, each weighing about a millionth of a gram, flex against silicon springs that hold them in place.
The movements are minute, or to put it another way, they're on the scale of 10 to 100 hydrogen atoms stacked side by side.
But these tiny movements can be measured with incredible accuracy. A charge is applied between the moving pieces of silicon and two nearby sensors. Faint fluctuations in that charge, as small as that of 10 electrons, are picked up by a chip that translates it into an understanding of how the controller is moving.
The two moving weights, which fit together on an area less than a millimeter square, have different roles. One has two sets of springs, which allow it to move from side to side and back and forth. The other weight is a flat piece anchored almost like trampoline. It senses vertical movement. This way, the chip can distinguish motion in all three dimensions of space.
Analog Devices Inc. of Norwood, Massachusetts makes a similar chip, which goes into the main Wii controller, the stick-like Wii Remote. According to Analog Devices, ST's chip is used in the auxiliary Freestyle controller (popularly known as the "Nunchuck") that connects to the larger controller for some games. ST said it was not allowed to say where exactly its chip is used...
Square Enix launches Final Fantasy X 25th anniversary site, revealing new Nomura art, books, music releases, and merchandise.
Look I know VIII has its issues and all that but how on earth can the do big anniversary events with new artwork and merchandise for VII, IX and X yet VIII got sweet f*** all.
They could have given it something during its 25th anniversary yet all it got was a single Happy Anniversary post on their social media.
they should know that we are OG fans of VIII as it sold truckload as well. not as much as VII or X. I personally didn't like IX but X and VI are my personal fav.
Shadow Hearts 2 covenant is another game I love. I hope one day someone can make remake, I would be delighted
Final Fantasy VIII is great and you are always the first to defend it in the comments
The Wii is now a retro console. Let’s get nostalgic about an often maligned system.
Crazy to think the WII is to the Switch 2, as the NES was to the WII back then. 20 Year difference.
My wife asks me to bust it out (heh) everyone once in a while to play bowling and tennis with the kids. There was a ton of slop on it but some good stuff as well.
Wii was great but boy howdy did it cause Microsoft to go on a dark walk with the Kinect and the disastrous XBox One launch that they arguably never recovered from.
Not nostalgic for me.. I was there.. anyone who wasnt a little kid realized it was a gamecube with shit tacked onto it, it was the "joke" system and was well below even the switch in terms of comparing it to the latest machines at the time. The machine was well loved by young people and "casual gamers" who now remember it 20 years on, or in most cases more of its sales came in the 15-20 years ago range not right at launch- but again its not nostalgic for people who were "gamers" then really, just for those who ended up with one in their house, the games , graphics, interface and online features were archaic already in 2006.
A brutal reset, a smarter story, and a return to what made it great—Mortal Kombat (2011) revived the series.
Underrated comment. I used to hate that game so much that any time my siblings asked me to play it, I just picked Hom and shut myself down mid-match.
15 years went by so fast. I remember playing through the story mode at launch.
It all makes sense now.. So they could known something out for a quid.. perhaps a Xbox 360 game and motion clipon for the controller in the price?
tiny springs?!?
i suppose little minature kuturagi's live inside that jump up to turn it on and off when you touch the buttons. and baby pixies run around on a wheel to play a blu-ray disc.
it all makes sense now!
If i were to keep one of my PS3's i would hope you would be able to turn off that half assed motion tilt BULLSHIT.