Gaming industry moving into the wrong direction???

[giblets]

Considering the three year old video that Sir Og posted, it looks like the Wii had the potential to do some pretty cool stuff. Maybe the game developers were just retarded.

[Asher]

It can only show half of an object. Maybe it could show a bit more if it had another camera.

It would need to have cameras stationed around the room. Unless you are making a joke?

[Sir Og]

Considering the three year old video that Sir Og posted, it looks like the Wii had the potential to do some pretty cool stuff. Maybe the game developers were just retarded.

Kinect has even more potential, because you don't need to hold anything in your hand or to have some gear on your head. Kinect of course is way more expensive.

Your point regarding software developers however is very true. They are at least 2 years behind the current hardware. And this is a trend that has been going for years.

[Asher]

Kinect has even more potential, because you don't need to hold anything in your hand or to have some gear on your head. Kinect of course is way more expensive.

Is it really?

How much do 2 Wiimotes + 2 Nunchuks cost? That's the single user case.

It's more expensive, but I wouldn't say it's much more.

$299 for a 4GB Xbox 360 w/ Kinect, $199 for Wii with 1 Wiimote and no nunchuk,

[Sir Og]

I was talking from PC user's point of view mostly in the context of doing cool head tracking, and cursor tracking stuff.

With the wii option you need to make your own gear (glasses with IR emitters) in addition to having a wiimote so you can't compare prices directly but the hardware is a lot more simple.

I thought about some potential limitations with kinect however. Will the camera have enough resolution and refresh rate to pick subtle movements and will the processing be fast enough not to cause lag issues?

[Asher]

It depends where you're doing the processing. You could process the raw data on your PC (rather than the ASIC in the Kinect unit), and improve latency.

The resolution is the gotcha right now. The optical and infrared cameras are 640x480 (60fps). But I wonder if this is hackable...

[Sir Og]

It depends where you're doing the processing. You could process the raw data on your PC (rather than the ASIC in the Kinect unit), and improve latency.

If the ASIC turns out to be too slow, wouldn't that mean that you will need huge CPU power to acheive an improvement. The ASIC should supposedly be a lot faster than the general purpose CPU.

[DriXnaK]

Are you ****ing retarded? Wait, don't answer that, you wear cheap fitting suits and talk up why kids should pay income taxes at 13.

I can't believe I'm actually laughing at an Asher insult/joke.

[Asher]

If the ASIC turns out to be too slow, wouldn't that mean that you will need huge CPU power to acheive an improvement. The ASIC should supposedly be a lot faster than the general purpose CPU.

It depends, really. MS was in cost-reduction mode with Kinect, the ASIC is very likely a minimal implementation of the basics, and not the fastest one. Same reason that a modern CPU can decode h264 video far, far faster than a dedicated h264 decoding ASIC can. Just, most people don't need "faster" decoding...once it's 60fps, it's 60fps.