A whole range of Movement
So I just said I’d check in for a bit and give my two cents on a topic.
Right so, an ad on tv prompted me to write this.
Recently Microsoft released their new Xbox Kinect, where you use your body as the controller. Sony have released their Playstation Move recently too. In all fairness, neither idea is really original, and both are their own take on motion sensor technology.
Some of the facts first (I havent researched any of these things so correct me if Im wrong):
the Wii was the first console to make use of motion technology is this way. It uses a infared sensor to connect the controller with the sensor bar, which contains two sensors. Two sensors on the bar, mean it has 3D vision, in that in can calculate the depth (the z axis, or the distance away from the screen) of the controller as well. It has a accelerometer in it too, which basically like a 3d compass, that always points down, so can do some trigonometry to detect its own orientation. This requires quite a lot of maths and therefore is fairly cpu intensive for updating in real time, which I believe is the reason for the less that realistic graphics.
The Wii Motion Plus, which I dont have, but from what I can tell contains like two accelerometers, so can use the difference of their values to detect actual movement, and not just like flicking your wrist to get results.
First a little about the PS3 and Xbox 360 (I have all three, so I get to be objective 
). The actual hardware of the PS3 is superior to the Xbox360, which Xbox fanboys dont like to hear, but its true. the original xbox360 didnt support resolutions over 720p and didnt come with onboard storage, you needed to buy a harddrive for it. the only thing that gives the Xbox a little leverage over the PS3 is the company that makes it. Microsoft has been making computer games for years, and online games too, therefore they have the entire network infastructure their already, making it easy to adapt for a Xbox Live. But you have to pay to use this network, a prospect which I disagree with. Sony, never before has made online games, therefore had to build this entire network themselves from scratch (I think at first, game developers needed to host the servers themselves, but correct me if im wrong). Plus they offer PSN for free, and it offers every feature that the Xbox Live has.
Since Microsoft deal with so many computer games developers, it makes sense for them to provide builds for most of their games on Xbox as well, and the improved network structure, and wider audience means more developers would choose to make games for the Xbox.
The Xbox Kinect uses two cameras, on a bar. Two separate cameras mean 3D field of vision. But I think a little problem lies with the use of cameras. the way a camera detects movement is that it takes a picture one second, waits a second, takes another picture, and compare the two. any tiny movement should be highlighted this way. a threashold is probably set to stop things like background interfering with the capture. So using the movement and 3d vision can calulate all the movement of the body. This again, in real time, is cpu intensive, and I believe means their wont be as good graphics. (a friend from school says they were all Wii style cartoon like graphics)
The PlayStation Move using a brightly coloured sphere at the end of a long remote. Colour tracking has been around since the eye toy on PS2, and can be done with very little effort in real time. The controller more than likely has all the accelometers in it that the regular SixAxis controller has, but I dont know how they would calculate the third dimension, perhaps the size of the sphere visable? I know the least about the Move, except it can use the regular PlayStation Eye camera thats been on the market for over two years now. From other peoples feedback it would seem the PlayStation Move is extremely accurate, moreso than I would of thought.
I probably wont buy any of these, since Im far too busy with 6th Year to actually play anything, but if my brother gets the Kinect for Christmas, I probably would play a few rounds with him.
Anyways, ttyl
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