Apparently Ann Summers are claiming 'prior art'

More details (games demoed etc) here:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/co ... ers-676120

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/pl ... led-676104

Hmm, I saw something like that in Novum, the local sex shop, when I went in there with my girlfriend...

Bet you wish you'd photographed it. The controller-looking thing I mean

^^^Maybe that's where the designers went?

1) wtf is the ping pong ball for?
2) are nintendo asking for their design back (minus the ping pong ball)?

The vids of people using it are horrific

It's a light emitter. You can actually change the colour it glows to ensure best contrast against the surroundings. The point is the thing actually works in the reverse way to the Wii controller.

OK,. with the Wii you have a 'bar' that sits underneath your telly. At each end of that bar are infra-red emitters. They are a known distance apart, since Nintendo made the bar. The Wiimote contains an infra-red sensor in the tip. That uses the fact that the two sources are a known distance apart to triangulate the remote's position compared to the bar, and which angle its facing and etc. This is actually fairly crude as these things go and has the drawback that it doesn't work properly unless the Wiimote can see both bars. However it's very computationally light, which allows the Wii to be relatively low powered in CPU terms and therefore cheap.

With the PS3 system, there is a USB camera connected to the PS3. The PS3 uses this to is spot the ping pong ball thing and tracks it to get movement information. This is combined with mercury switch angle sensors and (basically) a very sensitive compass to get 'attitude' which is transmitted to the PS3 as well, all of which gets combined within the PS3. Doing the 'orb spotting' and combining all the data points is much more computationally costly but the Ps3 has a lot more grunt than the Wii in the first place.

The net result is the PS3 system is a lot more expensive to implement - you need a camera, plus the controllers themselves aren't going to cost 20 quid - and looks a bit ungainly but it's actually much more accurate in terms of tracking the location and position of the controller. You'll be able to do things with the PS3 Move that you simply can't do with a Wiimote, even with the motion plus attachment.

Course, it's entirely up to the people making games to take advantage of the higher resolution. It could still be shedloads of minigames ahoy.


Maybe they can complain about the design, although given the PS3 wand has an enormous knob on the end they can't really claim cosmetic similarity. PLus there are only so many ways you can design a remote control - Sony can't sue Panasonic because they both make TV remotes that are bars with buttons on them. They also can't complain about the basic idea of having a control you wave around though; even if you could protect something that vague (which you might be able to in America but not in any country with a sane patent system) given the PS3 system uses a different fundamental mechanic there isn't any real patent conflict in that respect.

Basically, on a subjective level we can all see that Sony have more or less copied the Wiimote both in principle and rough functionality but in a sound legal sense I don't really think they'd have a case worth pursuing.

Jon

Just to be clear it was a lighthearted comment in for the most part, but thanks for jumping to Sony's defence. Looking at it though (1 remote type controller with trigger with an other second controller with analogue stick, etc) it is very similar IMO. It works differently yes but paint it white and pop off the ball and it looks like Wii controllers with more buttons.

Oh I wasn't defending them in any real way, I think it's patently obvious that, at least in user interface terms,they've ripped Nintendo off blind. I was just pointing out that, in the different world that the legal profession inhabits, it would actually be quite hard to prove that, as oppose to the argument that it's simply obvious that that's how you'd do it. In this case Nintendo have every right to bitch, I just think that there's not really anything they can do about it.

Jon

Can you imagine a room full of Nintendo execs looking at this thing around a meeting table going "wtf"

Well with a motion controller a Star Wars game would probably sell incredibly well on the PS3 now that it could emulate a light sabre.

That’s not really a light sabre. Unless you are a very poorly endowed Jedi.

Yes but for those without a light sabre it could aid training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

This guy could definitely do with some of that.

I think that he is still living that video down after all these years.