Ever since the dawn of the television remote control, we’ve been led to believe that any media item that can be controlled must be done so by way of a physical controller. Even the Nintendo Wii with all of its fancy motion-control interaction still requires the user to hold a physical controller in their hand in order to make use of the technology. While the end-of-year release of Microsoft’s controller-less Kinect for the Xbox 360 is set to challenge the way we interact with game consoles, I’m not altogether convinced that it will be the beginning of the end for physical controllers.
Upon seeing this rather entertaining article on the PopSci front page about ‘Eye Mario’—a Nintendo Entertainment System modification that allows players to control Mario with just their eyes—I continued to realise that the best implementation of controller-less technologies is better served in a complementary role, more-so than a straight out replacement.
As many Nintendo Wii owners (myself included) have professed, the novelty of games that can solely be controlled by motion-control mechanics wears off rather quickly. For the folks that believe that the release of Sony’s motion-control Move peripheral and Microsoft’s Kinect will mean the start of a glorious controller-less revolution, I respectfully disagree.
A wise man once pointed out to me that games are slotted into the same mental category as watching TV or movies; both of which involve the viewer/s to sit or lie on some form of comfortable object. It’s going to take a lot longer for the idea of waving limbs or even jumping around in front of a motion-controlled game to take off because such activities are not part and parcel with visual entertainment; at least not at this stage.
However, the concept of having non-physical control methods implemented in a complementary capacity has me rather interested. Where console games are limited in comparison to PC games is in the number of buttons available to them. PC games have access to an entire keyboard with its capacity to exponentially increase the amount of available buttons by allowing functions to be performed by using combinations of multiple keys. Due to the physical design and comparatively limited buttons on a console controller, the control possibilities are somewhat restricted.
If, however, console gamers were able to make various seated body movements—such as head movements, facial expressions or perhaps eye gestures—that were converted into in-game commands, I would be very interested in these alternate forms of control. My main problem with the current motion-control trend—outside the obvious part that requires me to get up and move during my otherwise relaxing gaming time—is the inherent further lack of control options. What is just over a dozen physical buttons on a current-generation console controller is further limited by whatever gestures are recognisable by the motion capturing device.
Even if the device is capable of interpreting subtle or slight body movements, it still means having to learn a foreign control mechanic that will ultimately have the player looking like more of an idiot with their strange body movements. I’m all for controller innovation, but I don’t see the current or upcoming generations of motion control as the future of how I’ll be playing games.
What do you think?
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I disagree in that i believe that the Kinect is awesome (reality may be different). I agree in that there will always be a place for controllers.
The problem here is with people unwilling to give up a working medium. ‘If it aint broke don’t fix it’ doesn’t wash.. ever. Its like the new 3D Tv, crap as it is. TV manufacturers have pretty much reached a point where they can make 1080P TVs, as thin as a mobile phone, 50″ accross and which use so little energy they require a whole new energy rating above hte 5 star (see Sony’s new line of LED backlits). All they can do now is up the resolution which is, sure, awesome but really unless you are within a metre of the damn thing you won’t notice.
So they are moving to 3d because they have whole RND departments filled with bright scientists and engineers and they need to use them.
Controllers are a working medium. We know this. But the human hand isn’t going to change anytime soon, so there is only so much you can do with it. Sure you could put a keyboard under it but the whole point of consoles is that you don’t need to know how to type, you don’t need to know how to install etc. And once you have the Xbox controller, which in my mind is by far the most ergonomic controller ever conceived (take note Sony) you start running into road blocks.
The technology for the next gen of consoles is already out. And it is cheap enough to mass produce. They are now limited by the fact that people don’t want to upgrade consoles every year. Who would? (Pc enthusiasts like me may scoff, but i realise i have a sickness).
So they have to pick a new direction. Wii has shown that motion control is a viable market. They have also shown enormous incompetence, something which PS and Xbox can cash in on.
I applaud their initiative. The problem now will be getting developers on board.. which isn’t much of a problem because developers have been running into the same god clammed barriers everyone else has. They have been confined and now they are not. I am super eager to see what they think up.
Both the Move and the Kinect have their functions. The move for games where you may be holding a sword or something, the kinect for fighting games. Both allow for movement in the 3D not just 2D flick motion which is what the Wii allows for.
Should be awesome seeing where this goes.
Just as the old modernist adage ‘form follows function’ was true of that particular period of time, so too nowadays does the phrase ‘developers follow manufacturers’ ring true. Now, that may sound obvious, but innovation seems to work on a top-down (e.g. manufacturers) model and isn’t insisted on from those below (e.g. developers). Take 64-bit operating systems for example: these should be the norm now, but because companies such as Microsoft haven’t decided to make them compulsory (although they’re definitely taking steps in the right direction), the superior possibilities of 64-bit operating systems is somewhat tarnished by incompatibility and lack of support from developers who should be jumping on board.
To return to the issue at hand, part of me loves this current direction of controller-less technology, but the often gimmicky nature and onus on appealing to casual gamers (to run with your Kinect example) isn’t enough for me to respect the innovation of it all. They should be impressing the hardcore gamers before boxing it up for Johnny Public.