Guest blogger Lance Seidman writes:
It should be no surprise that the gaming industry is growing every day as it attracts new types of gamers and programmers from every walk of life and mainstream media coverage upon the release of hotly anticipated games becomes more commonplace.
Even Mom and Dad aren’t left out when there are old standby games like Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong with easy-to-use controls that rival today’s in their simplicity. These and their contemporarily classic counterparts always seem to get rebooted, no matter the platform, and appeal to generations that grew up with them as well as those that are seeing them for the first time — they’re timeless. But if Mom and Dad were asked what modern gaming console they might prefer, it’s possible they’d react with blank stares. Depending on your age, maybe Mom and Dad were arcade wizards in their heyday and they miss the big boxes that ate quarters (or arcade-issued tokens) like candy and displayed their names and high scores for all to see.
But as they grew up, maybe they settled down to be content with more passive pastimes, like turning on the tube or light reading before a 10:00 p.m. bedtime. As arcades and pinball parlors have mostly diminished or morphed into something else entirely, the strains of adult life take precedence for many, and free time becomes all the more valuable — too valuable to worry about the pedantics of game console X vs. game console Y vs. game console Z. And cash that was once spent on frivolous pursuits (like gaming) gets allocated to more practical uses (like a new George Foreman Grill, for example).
So even if Mom and Dad are mostly down for the count when it comes to new and exciting releases, the gaming industry still has something to offer them as long as they can just sit back and enjoy without putting too much thought into the hows and whys of what makes it all work.
As a programmer for Web, mobile, and desktop platforms, I have done my fair share of building video games. With the experience of developing for different platforms, I have also been given my fair share of sneak peeks into what the future may hold. It’s looking more and more like games that require physical interaction are the way to go, and this is a logical development. Surely this will allow almost anyone alive and well to take part in playing games, no matter their age — perhaps enticing the aforementioned “adults” to take part in gaming a little more as, without having to learn fancy combo moves and multiple buttons, they become the controllers.
Sure, Nintendo Wii introduced the first wave of motion-sensitive controls to the household with use of a TV-topping sensor and a handheld controller that has to be strapped to the wrist for fear of flying across the room during heated gameplay, but Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox has taken it up a notch with a system that doesn’t require the gamer to hold anything at all. Body motion, gestures, and voice control get the job done. Sure, it’s not 100% perfect, but it’s a dramatic leap in the right direction — and Microsoft, well aware of the limitations, is working to overcome them.
The evolution looks to be Microsoft Research’s newly released development, known currently as Humantenna. Sure, it sounds like a bad Syfy network action movie, but as Microsoft says:
“Humantenna senses whole-body gestures without any instrumentation to the environment and only minimal instrumentation to the user. Leveraging the existing electromagnetic noise coming from appliances and power lines, the human body acts as an antenna and receives this noise, which this project uses as its signal. By measuring the voltage over time over one surface of the body, we are able to classify which gesture the user is performing. Humantenna can also identify the location of the user as well as the gestures being performed.”
If you thought for one moment that Microsoft isn’t still a technologically advancing company, you’re obviously very wrong. Over at Microsoft Research, it’s also been dabbling with the Doppler Effect to detect gestures. Best of all, it’s adapting to the fact that people play games together and wants to do away with split screens in favor of a concurrent dual view that would make one screen act like two based on the perspective of the players.
I am not a gamer, but I may even take part in this as it just continues to get more and more exciting.
That’s funny. I never once thought that Microsoft isn’t a leading and progressive technology company. Being a software engineer for over 15 years developing Windows applications I’m very pro-Microsoft. I’m a little disappointed that Microsoft has taken a back seat for a few years in the mobile game but I’m hopeful that their projections for 2015 are accurate.
I just recently got excited about doing Android development because of the array of sensors available for the Android platform and now motion sensing seems to be an evolving user input paradigm for gaming consoles which opens up the possibilities for a whole new generation of interactive gaming and simulation for the XBox 360.
Between the monitor in a contact lens and the geo-magnetic sensors available for the Android and this new humantenna device, the world of computing certainly is moving toward technology much like that in Minority Report.
It’s funny how life imitates art which imitates life, huh?
Robert,
I concur on every level with you. I am usually the only one who is on team Microsoft and not flip flop off the team but of course like the Super Bowl, when the big event occurs everyone obviously loves the team (or product) that is told to be the best bet and when the touch down happens, of course everyone always loved the team (aka company).
Without the advancement of new ideas, the innovations we see today (i.e. Kinect) may never have existed and really helped Microsoft get further up the latter, especially when people were sick to think Microsoft would have a gaming system but now no one can imagine life without Microsoft in the gaming industry.
If you think the monitor in a contact lens is cool, should check out the study of Concurrent Dual-View that Microsoft has been eye-balling, literally. Imagine having a 2-Player game, always split the view but with their new ideas they’re on their way without having to see the split-screen and depending on where you sat, would depend on which player screen you’d see and full screen!
I’m going to stick with a controller in hand, that’s how I always been playing games since Atari and don’t plan on changing that.
Is their more of a reason not to go with the latest in technology? For instance, a company has a game system where you wear this MRI like head-piece and can detect the movements you’d want to perform. Is this too not something you’d like? Unlike Kinect, this doesn’t require physical movement but also no controllers (except your brain waves).
I agree, I’ll stick with the controller for now. For this to work it needs to be way more responsive and as accurate or better than a controller.
It’s really cool technology to play around with, however there is still a lot of work to be done. The slight delays are really annoying and couple that with wifi lag, and then server latency and you have more lag than most people want. Looking at the video, playing tetris with your body looks really fun, but it takes way to long to detect your move. After a few levels it would be unplayable.
I also think that video games should be games, not try to simulate. Take a look at shooting games, and compare the people that use a controller vs the people that use motion controls. There was a company that made a 360 degree projector with a moving floor, motion controls, plus simulated gunfire and it seemed incredible. I’ve seen the inside of flight simulators (not actually used one) and it looked incredible. I think simulators are great alternatives to games, but they are very expensive. Half-way doesn’t work either. Take a look at Guitar Hero. To this day it’s still one of my favorite games, but from YouTube comments, most people would rather me play a “real” instrument than a video game. There have been some rhythm games that use MIDI instruments, and even some that use acoustic guitars, however, I would classify these games more as simulators more than video games. If anything, it’s just a new way to read music, as your are playing “real” instruments if you take away the TV.
I just think that there will be a transition period for video games. I personally still think a standard PC is the best gaming platform, perhaps with a few minor modifications (like my eyefinity setup). Right now I think this technology is in the “cool” stage, where most people are still getting used to it, and don’t expect too much. But in reality, it doesn’t have any practical uses. If I want to select something, I can either press a button on my keyboard, or hover my hand in the air for about 5 seconds.
BEND DOWN pls LOL
Woho, waiting for your open source drivers. Wait, your drivers are not OSS ? damn, so we have to wait for one of these 22 year old asian kids to program one >.<