Next Gen- your speculations

[Dante]

Nintendo are looking into holographic data storage for the next-gen.

[Emasher]

Nintendo are looking into holographic data storage for the next-gen.

 

Thats not necessarily for next-gen though.

[Konfucius]

Well what I'm expecting and what I want are quite different.

 

But what I'd like to see of Wii 2:

 

Full-HD support and powerful hardware together with more refined motion controls and a new button layout for the Wiimote. 7.1 sound support should be in it as well.

Open access to the Mii System for all developers and only one friend code per console if not none at all.

SD-Cards or something similar as a storage solution for games and a harddrive slot that accepts any PC harddrive.

W-LAN and LAN without any extra adapter.

 

 

What I expect to see:

A Wii with Full-HD support and some changes in the controller as well as true 5.1 sound and a small SSD.

[darkjak]

TBH, having everything in real currency wouldn't effect you much since you're in the US. But its actually an issue in other countries because of exchange rates.

 

I'm in Sweden: peace:

[david.dakota]

More of a wishlist than speculation.

 

Near silent operation.

Perhaps a way of very quickly transferring the whole game to a dedicated portion of Solid State every time the disk is inserted.

 

Ambience.

Includes temperature changes in Remotes. Ambient lighting.

 

TV mounted IR camera.

Able to distinguish eyes, head and finger movement. Could allow for cover options in games, camera movement, option selecting a la Minority Report.

 

Built in WiiSpeak.

 

Proper 'always on' connection. Ability to download titles when in standby.

 

5.1 Dolby Digital sound.

 

More of a Live online service.

[Emasher]

I'm in Sweden: peace:

 

Sorry, my post was directed towards Pit-JR.

[Choze]

Pricing games in points is the way to go.

 

You actually get ripped on the points system no matter what since most just put up with it.

 

Also what you are saying doesnt make sense because it depends on whether pricing changes really will occur or not. In general wii points are horrible compared to PSN in value or transparency. So you have working example right there. (£3.49 for corrected PS1 game ( 1 copy for PS3 AND PSP) Compared to £8 for 1 PAL NES game only on Wii.

 

Most dont know the actual pricing when it comes to the points system.

[darkjak]

You actually get ripped on the points system no matter what since most just put up with it.

 

Also what you are saying doesnt make sense because it depends on whether pricing changes really will occur or not. In general wii points are horrible compared to PSN in value or transparency. So you have working example right there. (£3.49 for corrected PS1 game ( 1 copy for PS3 AND PSP) Compared to £8 for 1 PAL NES game only on Wii.

 

Most dont know the actual pricing when it comes to the points system.

 

Well I do. 1 SEK=10 Wii points.

If you have the pricing in dollars, the price will be based on dollars, and there'll be something on the homepage automatically translating the price into your currency. That'll result in sudden, unpredictable price swings.

That it's expensive to buy VC games and so on hasn't got anything to do to if you pay it with actual money or points.

[DCK]

I think this will happen:

 

- Release date Q4 2013

- Incredible power increase compared to the Wii. Will output 1080p by default, and support Dolby Digital. It will be (nearly) as powerful as 2011-lauched Xbox 720, but cheaper, quieter and smaller.

- Its CPU and GPU will be produced by AMD

- Will not feature Blu-Ray or any media playback of the sort.

- Will use Blu-Ray tech for discs.

- Will have an ordinary hard drive, or SSDs have to become cheaper faster. Probably about 1 terabyte of storage.

- Games can be bought in stores or downloaded to the HDD

- Wiimote will be a refined version of the Wiimote Plus. Nunchuck will also feature pointer functionality.

- Sensor bar will be much more advanced, featuring actual sensor capabilities, a camera and built-in WiiSpeak.

- Wi-Fi only, supporting 802.11n

- Improved online possibilities, which'll still be very poor compared to the competition

[Emasher]

I think this will happen:

 

- Release date Q4 2013

- Incredible power increase compared to the Wii. Will output 1080p by default, and support Dolby Digital. It will be (nearly) as powerful as 2011-lauched Xbox 720, but cheaper, quieter and smaller.

- Its CPU and GPU will be produced by AMD

- Will not feature Blu-Ray or any media playback of the sort.

- Will use Blu-Ray tech for discs.

- Will have an ordinary hard drive, or SSDs have to become cheaper faster. Probably about 1 terabyte of storage.

- Games can be bought in stores or downloaded to the HDD

- Wiimote will be a refined version of the Wiimote Plus. Nunchuck will also feature pointer functionality.

- Sensor bar will be much more advanced, featuring actual sensor capabilities, a camera and built-in WiiSpeak.

- Wi-Fi only, supporting 802.11n

- Improved online possibilities, which'll still be very poor compared to the competition

 

The sensor bar A, will never need to sense anything with motion plus, and B, IR is now useless with motion plus, the Wii HD most likely isn't even going to have one.

 

And the Wifi, will probably support n, but will also support G.

[Hellfire]

The sensor bar A, will never need to sense anything with motion plus, and B, IR is now useless with motion plus, the Wii HD most likely isn't even going to have one.

 

And the Wifi, will probably support n, but will also support G.

Not useless at all, IR still is the best method for pointing, relying on motion+ alone would not only be more trouble for the devs but would be awkward in lots of situations.

It's useless to speculate, specially since Nintendo likes to throw curveballs, I just want the controller to be pretty a much a traditional controler split in two, each with gryoscopes and accelerometers, both with rumble, at least one speaker and IR on the right one. Now that they don't need to cater as much to new crowds I think it's feasible to have a controller with more buttons.

[darkjak]

The idea of an IR camera seems quite interresting.

Imagine an FPS where you can go from standing to prone, and lean by actually doing the movement.

Or a snowboard game which uses the balance board AND the IR camera, enabling you to do all the moves in the game without any controller in your hand.

[Emasher]

Not useless at all, IR still is the best method for pointing, relying on motion+ alone would not only be more trouble for the devs but would be awkward in lots of situations.

It's useless to speculate, specially since Nintendo likes to throw curveballs, I just want the controller to be pretty a much a traditional controler split in two, each with gryoscopes and accelerometers, both with rumble, at least one speaker and IR on the right one. Now that they don't need to cater as much to new crowds I think it's feasible to have a controller with more buttons.

 

We'll see when The Conduit comes out (Has the option to use motion plus for aiming).

[DCK]

The sensor bar A, will never need to sense anything with motion plus, and B, IR is now useless with motion plus, the Wii HD most likely isn't even going to have one.

That's not what I meant exactly. There are two advantages having the sensor bar do some sensing:

 

1) The sensor bar can get the WiiMote's location more accurately (I've read about some research showing that)

2) Having the sensor bar do it requires less sensing hardware and bandwidth is needed for the Wiimotes, saving battery life

 

It's probably a lot cheaper to have it done the way Nintendo has now, but the Wiimote's usage is too limited this way. Basically, they can implement the entire pointing functionality of the Wiimote (and maybe nunchuck) in the sensor bar, and just have the Wiimote equipped with accelerometers or gyroscopes.

 

I also think Nintendo will launch a redesigned Wii either in 2009 or 2010 that will be a lot smaller (like PStwo) and have HDMI out.

[Hellfire]

We'll see when The Conduit comes out (Has the option to use motion plus for aiming).

FPS aren't the only things that use IR. Think of a shootemup, like HoTD, some people feel weird pointing already because they're not pointing at the screen imagine if the pointing was due to your movements being replicated?

[Emasher]

I don't think thats quite how it works. From what I've read, with the Motion Plus they can actually check where the remote is pointing just like with IR, but it works much better since you don't have the remote loosing sight of the sensor bar because of being too far away, or the room being too bright ect. You still need to move your hand to aim with the IR.

[Hellfire]

I don't think thats quite how it works. From what I've read, with the Motion Plus they can actually check where the remote is pointing just like with IR, but it works much better since you don't have the remote loosing sight of the sensor bar because of being too far away, or the room being too bright ect. You still need to move your hand to aim with the IR.

Not quite.

 

The Wii remote's accelerometers measure linear acceleration not rotation, when you rotate it they just sense gravitational acceleration. So basically... tilt.

Gyroscopes (motion+) on the other hand respond just to rotation (gyro :P), not movement, so they're not affected by gravity.

Put the two together and what you have is a device capable of tracking pretty much every motion.

 

So, it cannot see where you are pointing at all, you wouldn't be pointing, the in game gun or cursor/wtvr would just move accordingly to your hand movements and replicating it but it would never know where the Wii Remote is.

Meaning that the information of how the wii remote is being held can be interpreted as, I'm pointing the gun forward and now moving it up, but realisticly it has no idea where you are pointing.

 

Not that you are pointing to the TV either with the IR, but IR triangulation together with the remote would me much better than limiting it to just the remote, considering that even with gyroscopes and accelerometers, there's no way of detecting where the wii remote is in space.

 

There's a reason why you need to point the remote at the screen at the begining of sword fighting here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1emrtvihg8&feature=related

 

Those who played CoD:WaW, to me it felt incredibly weird pointing when you were looking down the sights because since you didn't see any aim, you basically felt that it was replicating your movements. It's not the same thing as using just motion+ of course, but some effects would be similar to removing IR.

 

Pardon me if I'm not making much sense or saying something wrong, I'm a bit woozy :P

 

 

I also think Nintendo will launch a redesigned Wii either in 2009 or 2010 that will be a lot smaller (like PStwo) and have HDMI out.

Even smaller? Why? Consumer demand didn't even justify a color change much less new hardware. Not to mention it's very small and light already. And what's the point of HDMI out?

[Emasher]

Not quite.

 

The Wii remote's accelerometers measure linear acceleration not rotation, when you rotate it they just sense gravitational acceleration. So basically... tilt.

Gyroscopes (motion+) on the other hand respond just to rotation (gyro :P), not movement, so they're not affected by gravity.

Put the two together and what you have is a device capable of tracking pretty much every motion.

 

So, it cannot see where you are pointing at all, you wouldn't be pointing, the in game gun or cursor/wtvr would just move accordingly to your hand movements and replicating it but it would never know where the Wii Remote is.

Meaning that the information of how the wii remote is being held can be interpreted as, I'm pointing the gun forward and now moving it up, but realisticly it has no idea where you are pointing.

 

Not that you are pointing to the TV either with the IR, but IR triangulation together with the remote would me much better than limiting it to just the remote, considering that even with gyroscopes and accelerometers, there's no way of detecting where the wii remote is in space.

 

There's a reason why you need to point the remote at the screen at the begining of sword fighting here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1emrtvihg8&feature=related

 

Those who played CoD:WaW, to me it felt incredibly weird pointing when you were looking down the sights because since you didn't see any aim, you basically felt that it was replicating your movements. It's not the same thing as using just motion+ of course, but some effects would be similar to removing IR.

 

Pardon me if I'm not making much sense or saying something wrong, I'm a bit woozy :P

 

 

Even smaller? Why? Consumer demand didn't even justify a color change much less new hardware. Not to mention it's very small and light already. And what's the point of HDMI out?

 

You are right. But they could technically just ship the Wii HD with the Wii Speak and have a sensor in that to tell the remote where the TV is. The IR doesn't work very well in all conditions, this would work much better.

[Hellfire]

You are right. But they could technically just ship the Wii HD with the Wii Speak and have a sensor in that to tell the remote where the TV is. The IR doesn't work very well in all conditions, this would work much better.

The sensor would be somewhat the same, afaik other positioning techs are complicated and expensive. We never know how the tech will be in a few years though.

Never had any problems with IR anyway, specially not with light, I've head full power (lol) sunlight shining directly at it and it works normally. It's not perfect, but it's possibily the best alternative right now.

[Emasher]

Its not just light though, If I have my Wii set up in my living room (though I rarely do this) the Wii remote can't see the sensor bar from the couch. Its not even that far away. And its pretty awful if you're right near your TV/Monitor also. Its actually pretty good if you're using it in ideal settings, but not everyone is using it in ideal settings. The other option would be calibration. An application called Darwiin Remote that I use to connect a remote to my Mac can do this calibration thing where you set the Wii remote at certain positions to set it up to do a mouse mode with the accelerometer, and It actually works a little better than the IR, with Motion Plus it would be perfect. Though I can't see them going that way.

[mcj metroid]

it's IMPOSSIBLE to tell right now.. we can only know this for sure.

 

graphics will take a back seat for everyone next gen. I can see almost little improvement. Seems we are very much going back to 80s gaming here with random gadgets for consoles.

 

 

but if i had to guess:

wii will constantly be updated with add-ons with no sign of a newcomer for a good few years .. Like the ds.. I mean ds is almost 5 years and it's getting updates like no other with NO sign of a competitor.. I realise the situation is different on handhelds however.

 

Casual gaming will only get more common until gaming is accessible as television.

 

Motion sensing IS the future of gaming whether anyone likes it or not. But it will get better and better obviously.

[Hellfire]

Its not just light though, If I have my Wii set up in my living room (though I rarely do this) the Wii remote can't see the sensor bar from the couch. Its not even that far away. And its pretty awful if you're right near your TV/Monitor also. Its actually pretty good if you're using it in ideal settings, but not everyone is using it in ideal settings. The other option would be calibration. An application called Darwiin Remote that I use to connect a remote to my Mac can do this calibration thing where you set the Wii remote at certain positions to set it up to do a mouse mode with the accelerometer, and It actually works a little better than the IR, with Motion Plus it would be perfect. Though I can't see them going that way.

Again, without triangulation, it would lose a big plus.

Like I said, I never had any problems, but I know it's not perfect.

[Patch]

Reading the Conduit thread got me thinking that the next generation of consoles should see some AMAZING FPS games.

 

Assuming either Nintendo beef up their next console or Microsoft adopt motion controls, we should get the best of both worlds.

[Jamba]

Assuming either Nintendo beef up their next console or Microsoft adopt motion controls, we should get the best of both worlds.

 

Are you serious? Both worlds?

 

From a developer point of view, especially western devs, if you had a choice between making an FPS on Wii2 or X720 which would you pick? I know it wouldn't be Wii2...

[darksnowman]

Heyyy, whats wrong with both worlds? If the Wii had graphics on par with Xbox 360 + PS3 then we'd be getting the best of both worlds right now.