Digital Buzzard

The 2009 E3 is currently underway at the LA Convention Center. It’s the ultimate yearly showcase for gaming companies and an exciting time for your average gamer. Following months of speculation, leaks and fanboy baiting, the world waits with baited breath for the next big announcement from the Big Three: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

When the Wii launched in 2006, Nintendo changed the game. The Wii-mote was a revolution in gaming – Sony and Microsoft couldn’t compete in terms of interaction with their devices, despite the significant advantage in processing power of the 360 and PS3.

Now both companies have had time to reflect (and drop several million into R&D), and they’ve come to E3 with their own take on motion sensing controllers, whilst Nintendo has launched their own ‘upgrade’ to the existing Wii-mote. Here’s what each company wants you to spend your hard-earned cash on in the next 12 months.

Xbox 360

Microsoft has gone all out with their innovation – Project Natal is a 9-inch horizontal bar, consisting of an “RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software”. This accessory provides full-body motion capture, facial and voice recognition, allowing full immersion within a game, and removing the need for a controller or buttons. Microsoft supported the announcement with a promotional video, demonstrating the potential of this device.

PS3

Since the launch of Sony’s black behemoth, they’ve consistently lagged behind Nintendo and Microsoft with their controllers. Force feedback was missing from the console until last year, and the 360’s ergonomic controller takes the usability crown that the PS2 had held for many years. OK, so the Six-axis did provide a level of motion sensing, but it’s underused and inaccurate. If you’ve ever used the motion control features of games such as Warhawk or Wipeout HD, then you’ll know to keep it turned off in future and rely on traditional input.

The new controller from Sony (as yet unnamed) is essentially a stick with a glowing ball on the end. The ‘stick’ contains motion and orientation sensing devices (like the Wii-mote) and the ‘ball’ is recognized by the PS3 Eye to add an additional level of accuracy.

The result is a sub-millimeter accurate device, with the added bonus of augmented-reality style overlays on the screen. They enlisted the help two uncomfortable-looking, but clearly excited developers to show the device in action at their E3 presentation.

Wii

Nintendo really didn’t pull anything out of the bag this year. Their already-announced MotionPlus sensor, which adds additional sensitivity to the Wiimote, was paraded again, but it’s far from the revolution of the original controller.

Their other new product was the Wii ‘Vitality’ – a heart rate monitor. Ok… it’s a nice idea with some interesting gaming potential, but it’s hardly the level of innovation we’d expect from Nintendo. It seems like yet another attempt to sell us a peripheral that will be supported by three games before everyone else loses interest.

In Summary…

I think we can say quite definitely that Nintendo’s innovations were disappointing. They get some points for being first with motion controllers, 3 years ago, but they clearly need to step up their game now. The Wii is massively underpowered compared to its competition, and it’s shortcomings are beginning to show, despite continually huge sales.

Microsoft have an adventurous project on their roadmap. The success of the Natal is entirely dependent on the accuracy of this device – it’s making a brave promise, but relies on a technology that is traditionally difficult technology to master. Don’t forget Hollywood motion capture still requires actors to cover themselves in ping pong balls.

Sony’s ball and Stick is certainly interesting – and promises to be the most accurate of the three. Their tech demo was impressive and has no doubt got people’s attention. They have more economic challenges ahead of them though – gamers will have to buy both the PS3 Eye and a new controller – I can’t imagine that it’s going to be cheap, especially given some of the applications demoed required two of the controllers.

There’s definitely some exciting times ahead for gamers, and I’m looking forward to seeing what games developers can do with the technology. Ultimately, it will come down to one thing: the innovation of the developers and the games they create using these new technologes will ultimately decide who wins this latest stage of the console war.

Apple’s 2009 WWDC will be held, as it is every year, in San Francisco’s Moscone center. And every year, the preceding months are full of rumour, speculation and anticipation as to what new bright and shiny device Steve and his cronies will reveal to the hordes of fanboys, tech-bloggers and gadget addicts in attendance.

The smart money this year is on an update to the ultra-successful iPhone 3G. An improved camera, video calling and higher speeds are all fairly safe bets, and the 3.0 firmware currently in the hands of many developers confirms a lot of this with hidden screens and references to hardware not in the existing handsets.

Perhaps most interesting is the possibility of a magnetometer built into the next device in the iPhone family. A post on the Nokia Blog describes this piece of technology (already in the Nokia 6210) very well:

A traditional compass only works when it is held horizontally. As Paul Coulton recently described in his Forum Nokia Blogs posting, the Nokia 6210 includes a 3-axis magnetometer. Through some calculations, it is possible to find out the absolute direction in which the phone is facing, no matter how the phone is oriented.

So what does this mean? Well, the addition of a magnetometer would allow the iPhone to not only provide an accurate location (via GPS), the orientation of the phone (via the tilt sensors) but also determine in which direction the user is facing. This opens up a vast number of possibilities for the iPhone development community.

For example, we already have street maps accessible on the iPhone, and we can use the touch screen to rotate a 360-degree image of major cities worldwide. The magnetometer could further enhance this by allowing the user to rotate the image by pointing the phone in the right direction. Taking this idea further: you could stand in a street and hold your iPhone up – it would determine where you are, and in which direction you’re facing. Then, using the camera, an application could overlay information on the live image, such as directions, information on the area or advertising from the shops and businesses around you.

The potential applications aren’t just functional either. Augmented Reality, the technology of overlaying 3d images onto live video footage, is already showing huge potential in the gaming industry. This technology was used in the PS3 game ‘Eye of Judgement’ where a combination of the PS3 Eye camera and specially marked trading cards relayed the play area to your TV screen complete with animated 3D characters.

Animator David O Reilly has created a of a simple but effective mockup of an animated character that gives the appearance of being 3-dimensional. This could become reality if a magnetometer is present in the device.

The ability to use this technology in a mobile device is exciting – the National University of Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab created a live version of Pac Man in the streets of Singapore. There’s no reason this couldn’t be recreated on the iPhone, removing the need for backpack-sized wearable computers as used by the participants in this experiment.

The opportunities are vast, and the iPhone development community has already proven itself to be innovative in its usage of the existing hardware. Let’s hope the Magnetometer is more than rumour and that we see some novel approaches to navigation and gaming applications if it the hardware is present within the next-gen iPhone.