Next Generation of Motion Controls

[Helmutye]

There seems to be a lot of hate out there towards motion controls. While I can definitely understand some of the gripes, I feel like they're more problems of execution rather than fundamental flaws, and I think a lot of people miss the huge advantages.

Most people seem to think that the only value motion controls can have is to increase immersion by allowing the user to physically mimic the movements involved with the in game persona. This can be fun in some games (specifically party games, where everyone is a bit tippy and the game is having you make funny gestures or strike amusing poses), but it's rarely convincing in a serious situation (I was less than impressed with Red Steel 2 on the Wii--it was a pretty good sword sim, but without feedback or at least some kind of surround sound it isn't fooling anybody). Motion controls are not really a definite step towards full immersion VR.

However, in many cases motion controls allow for a much more intuitive interface with a game. The most striking example I can think of is Resident Evil 4. I played it for the first time on my brother-in-law's PS2, and was not particularly impressed. I thought the game and the situations were interesting enough, but I could not get past a certain point with the controls, and after a rather short time my hands hurt so bad from the strain of trying to get the controller to do what I wanted that I had to stop. Some time later, I tried the game on the Wii, and the difference was incredible! The Wii controls were far, far superior, not because it felt more like shooting a gun but because I could simply point the cursor where I wanted to shoot. My accuracy improved greatly, and it was far less tiring for me to play. There are plenty other games where the point and click interface is a lot nicer and a lot quicker than traditional controller interfaces, but I'll let that one example suffice for now.

When viewed from this perspective, what do you think will be the next step in motion controls? I myself wonder if the next step might be motion control gloves--imagine if you had a motion sensor on each finger, and could interact with the screen using the best features of both touch screens and mouse-driven systems! It would be like something out of Minority Report or Johnny Mneumonic (minus the 3-D hologram/VR, of course).

 

[oplinger]

Minority Report can already exist sans the holographic display (which is apparently coming)

You take your wiimote, point it at you (has to be plugged into a computer, I haven't seen it have decent results with a wii) now, have some gloves with Retroreflective tips, using retroreflective tape or something.

Put a light behind the wiimote, and ta da, the wiimote detects your fingers when they're close enough., giving you a wide range of things you can do if the program supports multiple inputs. It's pretty awesome.

Really most of the awesome stuff with motion controls happens in the reverse of how the wii handles it (the kinect, for instance) for instance, if you use a wiimote (or another IR camera) and place IRLEDs on your head, you can have certain games that support it (ARMA 2 supports it..there's also a device like this you can buy.) you can turn your head, and the character in game will turn theirs, allowing you to move with the keyboard, and fire and aim your gun with the mouse, but you can look around with your head. Works great in racing games too. or...say, Mechwarrior.

This is the next step for motion controls. It's just a.....Wii reversal that sounds terrible

 

[Frotality]

the next step for motion controls is off a cliff.

RE4 was considered a major innovation for the series, so if it took the Wii version to get you into it, it probably wasnt the game for you anyway. even nintendo seems to be giving up on that whole gimmick seeing as sony/microsoft plan to milk it into the ground. and even then, the wii had motion controls along with pretty much every other standard button, so RE4 on the wii still has whole levels of control more than move or kinect.

it boils down to the ultimate future of gaming that people seem to never think about; things can go 2 ways, either the ultimate gaming device will be the holodeck or the matrix. the holodeck is, i think most would agree, the theoretical future of motion controls; but the holodeck is still incredibly limited. even beyond how you could play a game like okami or anything else where your not a human, there are very basic human limitations; we play CoD because we are not soldiers, we cannot run around and crouch behind walls all the time, we cannot aim, we cannot drop shot; your skill is limited by your fitness and your general human movements, which is quite limited indeed.

the matrix on the other hand, representing the ultimate future of basic mind-action controls, is limited by nothing but your own mind. if you can dream it, you can play it. developers have absolute free range to program whatever the hell they want; they arent limited by the human form or its movements, they are, like current developers, limited only by the technology at hand. add to that that whatever you could do with motion controls would be alot easier in the matrix; how the hell would you simulate flight with motion controls? put a big fan in the floor? with mind-action controls, its as simple as programming some flight controls.

tl;dr - motion controls are a dead end, there is no reason to develop them to a known and limited conclusion. simple mind-action controls are limited by nothing but technology, and are what the industry SHOULD be developing.

 

[imagremlin]

Well, it's been five years, and very, very few games made any meaningful use of motion controls.

Given the industry's pace, it's hard to come up with a better proof that motion controls are going nowhere.

 

[imagremlin]

...even nintendo seems to be giving up on that whole gimmick seeing as sony/microsoft plan to milk it into the ground.

There's people that show late to the party, but this is ridiculous. The party is over, the hall has been cleaned, hell I think they demolished the building.

 

[Trolldor]

Motion controls are going nowhere because they're doing it wrong.

They keep marketing motion controls for the casual market, for party games and so on.
The casual market is great for new ideas, but is far from the level it needs to be when you want refinement, complexity and execution.

 

[zombieeater6000]

unless their a lot better this next gen i say let them die

 

[mireko]

A neural interface inserted into the base of the spine.

Or, you know, any kind of sensory feedback. Thwacking things without any blows connecting is just painful. I don't know how to fix that, but that's not my job. All the systems need more accuracy as well. The Kinect is much too slow, and the Move is basically a light gun. The Wiimote is both of these things, only less interesting.