Game Development Giant - Chapter 857

c851 The bumpy road of somatosensory gaming in history

To be honest, although somatosensory has just been introduced into the game.

But the future application of somatosensory in society will definitely not only be in games. In fact, later touch screens can also be regarded as something similar to somatosensory.

Jester knew that the history of the development of motion sensing was not smooth sailing, but full of ruggedness – from the time when the first game manufacturer came up with the idea of ​​motion sensing until he traveled through it, this rugged road continued, as if he could not see it. The end.

It should be a more accurate term to call the next eleven or twelve years a somatosensory era.

Handheld consoles, home consoles, even mobile phones, tablets, almost all hardware terminals with entertainment functions are being scratched by various manufacturers to constantly add elements and functions that can make consumers shine, but they seem to ignore these Highlights are mature or necessary.

So we have mobile phones and handheld consoles with gravity sensing functions, sound and light sensing functions, multi-axis gyroscopes, large amusement machines with various ways of playing, and even home machines that do not require traditional control handles. In this extremely fast-developing world, even entertainment has boarded the high-speed train of technology. We can even easily look forward to how the entire gaming industry will undergo earth-shaking changes in the next five or ten years. Can we conclude that playing games in a somatosensory way will no longer be an eye-catching experience in the future, but will become a necessity for games?

This issue was not settled even in the era of Jester’s time travel. Indeed, whether it was WIIU’s half-body sense or Microsoft’s Kennet at the time of Jester’s time travel, there were actually some that were not taken seriously by players. , but no one would ever say that motion sensing is outdated – because motion sensing games, especially those on WII, are unparalleled fun even in the era of PS4 and XBO.

Many players asked Nintendo fans.

Do you think it’s fun to play a game with a screen full of mosaics?

They will always answer you in a very affirmative tone: “You can only seek pure gaming fun by putting aside the flashy graphics. This is what Nintendo’s games are like. The graphics only need to be eye-catching. Why do they have to be too real? What you are playing After all, it is a game, not a picture. For better pictures, you can watch well-made CG or movies. Why bother to play games?”

Of course, Nintendo’s games are indeed pure gaming fun.

But in terms of game design, Nintendo’s capabilities should be unparalleled.

Somatosensory play, literally. It is to experience a game type or method with your body. It is no longer limited to traditional controller button input commands, but uses the player’s own body movements to change and control the progress of the game. Later, to everyone’s surprise, Microsoft’s Kinect was strictly the console peripheral that best met the definition of somatosensory games, much more so than the WII. Although Kinect’s creativity and experience were very advanced, as I said before. Microsoft is not the first manufacturer to be interested in somatosensory products and develop products.

It’s not even the second one.

I have said before that Atari was even more advanced than Microsoft’s Kennett in the idea of ​​using the brain to control games.

Although this idea seems a bit whimsical now.

In the original history, as the share of Nintendo’s FC or NES game console expanded, it seized Atari’s market, causing Atari to withdraw from the stage of history with regret and remorse, and the era of Nintendo’s rise came. .

Rich software has injected endless vitality into the young console of FC. With the great momentum, Nintendo has also taken steps to seek innovative gaming experiences.

Starting from the most well-known Zapper (light gun), Nintendo has been struggling on the road of somatosensory, and many peripheral peripherals like PowerGlove (energy gloves) have appeared in the process that make people speechless. Take energy gloves as an example. Friends who have watched the A~VGN series (Angry Video Game Nerd, generally known as the Angry God James in China) short films will definitely be familiar with the complicated password disk, the scummy feel, and the… There is no way to install a stable signal receiver on the TV, and there are only a few games that support this peripheral. All cases point to one fact: the energy glove is a piece of shit.

However, this does not hinder Nintendo’s exploration and innovation on this road. Otherwise, Nintendo may not make an epoch-making product like WII that changes the way games are played.

certainly. Even Nintendo’s progress on this road has been extremely bumpy.

Energy gloves are not the worst somatosensory equipment. Later, a peripheral called U-Force stepped forward and proved to us: there is no worst, only worse.

This looks like a laptop peripheral. It uses infrared sensors to detect movement in the electromagnetic field within its panels to control the actions of characters in the game. Unfortunately, in the late 1980s, the technology of infrared motion detection was not mature at all. In the end, when players got the finished product of this peripheral, they could only wave their arms like crazy on the panel, hoping that it could recognize the player’s movements. The peripheral also comes with a plastic flight control stick for playing flight simulation games. There is no doubt that the feeling of this control lever is still unbearable.

certainly. In its original history, Sega, which launched a console war with Nintendo in the late 1980s, naturally did not want to lag behind Nintendo in any aspect. Since Nintendo is making motion sensing, they have also made many unique motion sensing devices for players to enjoy.

Among MDs, there is a somatosensory peripheral called ctivator that uses the same technology as U-Force, using infrared sensors to sense the player’s limbs.

However, we can learn from U-Force’s past experience: don’t have any hopes for the infrared motion detection technology of the 1980s – in fact, Activator does drive players crazy just like U-Force. Each side of this octagonal peripheral is mapped to a different button on the controller. All the player needs to do is stand in this octagonal frame, dance like a madman, and hope that his movements can pass through this without any problem. Sensitive sensors are passed to the host to control the actions of the game characters. It is obvious that Activator has succeeded in tormenting players.

After tasting the pain of somatosensory, Sega was disheartened and did not think about somatosensory for a while until its last home console, the Dreamcast. There is a strange development game on DC. It’s called “Seaman”, and this SeamanMicrophone is tailor-made for this game. SeamanMicrophone is a microphone peripheral. By connecting it to DC, players can interact with the protagonist in “Seaman”.

certainly. This thing has also been proven to be a whimsical and immature product from Sega.

Microphones, etc., of course Nintendo, a strange manufacturer, has already thought of it. As early as N6~4, Nintendo made this peripheral called VoiceRecognitionUnit. This peripheral is literally called a speech recognition unit. Just connect it to N6~4. Players can use the microphone to control Pikachu to adventure around in the game “Heyyou, Pikachu” – but unfortunately, based on previous experience, this is impossible to do. Most of the time, players just keep yelling at Pikachu about adventures and adventures, but Pikachu seems to be completely unable to hear it. From this we draw the conclusion again: after plugging in VoiceRecognitionUnit, Pikachu becomes deaf.

After entering the new millennium, with the rapid development and rapid advancement of new technologies, the various new technologies owned by major game companies can no longer be compared with those before.

Something that before seemed fanciful or even failed. If you do it now, it might turn into something very creative.

After Sega regretfully withdrew from the console market that they had been competing with Nintendo for more than ten years, their successor Microsoft joined the battle. Together with Nintendo and Sony, they share the huge market of console games with an annual output value of more than 10 billion.

A tripartite force was finally formed. In order to check and balance each other, each company tried its best and used every possible means. Naturally, the leaders of manufacturers will not forget their long-cherished wish that has not been realized at the beginning – somatosensory games when technological capabilities have developed to a certain height.

In 2003, technologically advanced Sony launched a peripheral for its most successful and proudest console, the PlayStation 2: the EyeToy. Sony was playing a big game at that time. The motion sensing plan including this peripheral was actually in progress as early as 2000. At that time, Sony even conceived the concept of PlayStation Move. And make a prototype, and EyeToy is just their first step on the road to somatosensory.

To put it bluntly, EyeToy is just a camera that collects players’ body language through camera to play games. Taking the player completely off the controller. This 300,000-pixel camera, officially authorized by Sony and produced by Logitech, caused a sensation in the market as soon as it appeared, with many people praising Sony’s technical capabilities and forward-thinking vision. There are more than 30 games that support this peripheral, but for some reason, these 30 games don’t seem to be popular. EyeToy also quickly withdrew from the stage of history as the console entered the next generation.

After entering the next generation, Sony followed suit. For his new console PlayStation 3, he made a camera peripheral with the same parameters and integrated microphone function, PlaystationEye. Unfortunately, this peripheral has little meaning when used alone. It is mainly used to play games in conjunction with Playstation Move.

But in the face of Nintendo’s WII and Microsoft’s Kennett, Sony’s set of motion sensors doesn’t seem to be recognized by many players.

After the new millennium, Nintendo seemed to have reached a fork in the road.

The retirement of legendary president Hiroshi Yamauchi, and after the fiasco of NGC, the two roads at the fork became a multiple-choice question of survival or destruction. Satoru Iwata was appointed at the critical moment. After several choices, the future president of Nintendo ZTE chose We took a path that was not favored by others at the time – we wanted to do something different from others.

Since our handheld console cannot match the PSP in terms of functionality, we will make a handheld console with completely different usage methods. This is the NDS.

Since we can’t compete with Microsoft and Sony in terms of pure hardware, we will do something they won’t do, which is somatosensory. To be precise, compared to Sony and Microsoft’s camera capture, Nintendo uses a simpler and more efficient A clever technical means, half-body sensing.

This is the next-generation console that has brought Nintendo back to the throne of kings – Wii. Through the unique nunchuck-type controller, the previous gaming method of sitting in front of the TV and rubbing the handle is changed, allowing players to truly move.

This is a super console with sales of more than 100 million units.

When she was at her craziest, Microsoft and Sony’s 360 and PS3 combined couldn’t sell as much as she did.

He has conquered countless players with his unique gaming experience. Even now, Jester can still recall the first time he played tennis and “Zelda: Skyward Sword” on the WII. It was such a shock. It felt like this was probably the only time in his entire gaming career. At that time, Jester had only one thought in his mind, and that was.

This is the game they should have in the future.

Of course, as the giant in the electronic technology industry – Microsoft, they are naturally unwilling to lag behind others. In terms of research and development, I am afraid that Nintendo and Sony combined are not as strong as Microsoft’s technical strength. This is also the case. Kinect is indeed the cut-off Until Jester’s time travel, it was the most powerful and successful somatosensory device. Its sense of technology and technical content are completely unmatched by the somatosensory devices of Nintendo and Sony.

He shocked the whole world when he debuted at the 2009 E3 exhibition.

The most amazing thing about this peripheral is that it doesn’t require any controller at all to be held in your hand. This is something neither Nintendo nor Sony has done. The working principle of Kinect is to form a 3D image of the player’s space through a camera that can capture 30 times a second, a sensor that detects strength and depth, and four microphones that collect sound, and then analyzes the player’s body movements. . Obviously, at a technical level, Kinect is far superior to Wii and PSMove, so Kinect is also jokingly called “Mars Technology” by players.

However, the power of Kinect can not hide one of the most critical problems, that is, Microsoft simply does not have a game development team as powerful as Nintendo’s first-party development team, which can develop for Kinect the same game that Nintendo originally developed for WII. Those great motion-sensing games.

This also proves a concept that Jester insists on from another aspect.

The game is the foundation and the console is just a carrier.

Not many players will buy a console for pure hardware, because the purpose of a console is to play games. (~^~)