Ken Kutaragi replaced as president of Sony's gaming unit

[Kuciwalker]

I swear you're thicker than Aggie.

[Asher]

You miss the true power of this - you don't need to have scripted actions like "close the blast door." You can design it so the player can pick up almost any object. Here's the difference:

Character is being pursued by Stormtroopers through a cave or canyon. There are loose rocks and boulders all over the walls of the cave or canyon.

Your version:
An icon flashes or a boulder lights up, indicating you can cause it to slip and fall and crush the Stormtroopers. You make a gesture and it happens.

Mine:
You see the rocks, decide to turn around and grab them and chuck them down, where they crush the stormtroopers.

Now imagine that in multiplayer. Doing stuff like Vader did in the duel on Bespin, without any scripting.

Again, this is possible with any controller.

It is easier to do with the Wiimote, which is nifty. But it's also harder to due because the Wii's CPU isn't very beefy for lots of dynamic world interaction. And the poor resolution of the console makes it harder to see such details.

[Elok]

Hold down left trigger to activate "force," you say? While using both analog sticks? So, if there were a comparable "force" button on the Wii, you could indeed use both controllers to simulate "throwing stuff around," only with far better fine control, much as you have given the example on the X360. And, per your request, we're not bringing in how intuitive it feels to actually throw with your hands instead of twiddling an analog stick...not to mention that, since two analog sticks are required to move in three dimensions, it's more like the 'mote with nunchucks is FOUR analog sticks, and much more seamlessly integrated.

BTW, how is being able to snap a football a silly novelty that only distracts, whereas juking around with a hockey puck is essential and would never interfere with the grand strategy of a game?

[KrazyHorse]

I said it couldn't finely determine both velocity and position simultaneously.

Good. They're conjugate observables.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

I said it couldn't finely determine both velocity and position simultaneously.

Good. They're conjugate observables.

I considered that joke and rejected it as too old

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I said position.

Why are you always talking about completely outrageous things?

I was using it was an example of how you can precisely control things with the analog sticks, and you go talking about how you can't position the car anywhere you want? Do you realize this is a gameplay construct?

I said it couldn't finely determine both velocity and position simultaneously. It can be configured for one or the other but not both.

How do you figure? There are two analog sticks, dear. One to determine one axis of movement, one to determine the other.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
Hold down left trigger to activate "force," you say? While using both analog sticks? So, if there were a comparable "force" button on the Wii, you could indeed use both controllers to simulate "throwing stuff around," only with far better fine control, much as you have given the example on the X360. And, per your request, we're not bringing in how intuitive it feels to actually throw with your hands instead of twiddling an analog stick...not to mention that, since two analog sticks are required to move in three dimensions, it's more like the 'mote with nunchucks is FOUR analog sticks, and much more seamlessly integrated.

Yeah. We haven't even got to the part of the discussion where Asher realizes that if you're using the analog sticks to move an object you can't be using them to move your character - you're stuck. Whereas on the Wii, you've still got an analog stick on the Nunchuck and a d-pad on the remote to control character movement while swinging a sword or grabbing an object.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Elok
Hold down left trigger to activate "force," you say? While using both analog sticks?

I'm assuming 1 stick for each hand.

BTW, how is being able to snap a football a silly novelty that only distracts, whereas juking around with a hockey puck is essential and would never interfere with the grand strategy of a game?

I take it you don't understand sports at all if you're asking this question.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I considered that joke and rejected it as too old

The best quantum joke I ever made came while I was sitting in quantum II

I looked ahead of me and there was a guy (Ryan) with a girl to his left and a girl to his right. I turned to my friend and said "Ryan looks very Hermitian today".

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Yeah. We haven't even got to the part of the discussion where Asher realizes that if you're using the analog sticks to move an object you can't be using them to move your character - you're stuck. Whereas on the Wii, you've still got an analog stick on the Nunchuck and a d-pad on the remote to control character movement while swinging a sword or grabbing an object.

That's true, you can move while throwing things. That's a massive advantage, it surely makes up for the fact that the Wii is technically too weak for complex dynamic environments you describe on any kind of reasonable scale.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Asher

Again, this is possible with any controller.

It is easier to do with the Wiimote, which is nifty. But it's also harder to due because the Wii's CPU isn't very beefy for lots of dynamic world interaction. And the poor resolution of the console makes it harder to see such details.

Just to be clear: the Wiimote does open up new gameplay opportunities, as opposed to being a worthless gimmick? And, having yielded that point in bad grace, we're on to bashing the CPU instead? Goody. I'll probably move on to more of a spectator role now, seeing as I don't know programming too well, but I'll give it a shot. It seems to me that you could simply label various parts of the game world as movable objects which are static at a given location when they're not being picked up and thrown around. Was it Half-Life 2 that did a similar thing with some sort of "gravity gun?" That game's a few years old; is the Wii really weaker than a several-years-old PC?

I admit that you couldn't pluck the blaster out of a stormtrooper's hand. Graphics resolution has nothing to do with it either; with that degree of fine control you'd need to be a bloody virtuoso to do it in the heat of battle, seeing it or not. You could, however, pick up the stormtrooper himself and chuck him into his pals with one controller, while simultaneously picking up a table with the other controller and moving it into place to block said pals' shots.

[Asher]

I acknowledge the Wiimote adds some new dimensions to certain games that can be interesting.

That said:
I also acknowledge that the actual hardware that drives the Wii is woefully underpowered. This is not just about graphics, but everything in the game from level size/design, how many people can play in a game at once, how dynamic the world is, how many objects can have physics in a scene, how smart the AI is, etc.

The Wii has greatly sacrificed technical capabilities for massive profit margins and a different control scheme, which is not always preferable. While there are a few games that would work best on the Wii, it's safe to say most games will not fit in that category and there's no alternative control method for those games.

I'd be much, much happier with the Wii if it was at least somewhat competent technically, came with a regular controller as an option as well, in addition to the Wiimote. As it is now, it's an overpriced gamecube with a bundled peripheral. And folks, it's almost 2007.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Elok
Just to be clear: the Wiimote does open up new gameplay opportunities, as opposed to being a worthless gimmick? And, having yielded that point in bad grace, we're on to bashing the CPU instead?

The gameplay opportunities it "opens" are gimmicky in and of themselves (eg, throwing rocks while controlling your character). I don't back down from my gimmick comment, and in fact it's been reinforced by the discussion here on how "neat" the little things can be that doesn't actually change the gameplay so much as it provides an avenue for people like Kuci to get off pretending they're Darth Vader.

Goody. I'll probably move on to more of a spectator role now, seeing as I don't know programming too well, but I'll give it a shot. It seems to me that you could simply label various parts of the game world as movable objects which are static at a given location when they're not being picked up and thrown around. Was it Half-Life 2 that did a similar thing with some sort of "gravity gun?" That game's a few years old; is the Wii really weaker than a several-years-old PC?

The Wii's CPU is a modified G3 (remember those? Before the G4 and G5 and Core Duos and Core 2 Duos that APple used) running at about 750MHz. Half-Life 2's gravity is not possible on such a console with any kind of scale like HL2's.

[KrazyHorse]

s the Wii really weaker than a several-years-old PC

Uhhh....yes.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Asher
I take it you don't understand sports at all if you're asking this question.

I don't, but both involve fine motor control of a single player at a time, right? The football-snap could be simulated with a "throw" button, but so could juking the puck. You could have a "juke" button or whatever. You know, in case the game player doesn't want to bother with the physical motion of futzing around with the puck, so he can concentrate on what's going on in the game at large.