DMGWii
Not that anybody cares, but here we go.
I got to play with a Wii over the weekend, and I hated it. I tried basically the whole sports package. Boxing, tennis, and baseball.
It was extremely frustrating. The Wii's slow responses made it really tough to time anything. And the mismatch was especially evident with boxing: I'd throw a huge, cartoonish left hook, and my on-screen character would throw a jab. Repeated attempts to throw a right hand did nothing at all.
But the real problem was the breakdown of the fundamental premise of the Wii interface: that the on-screen character will mimic your actions. In the end, the most effective means of controlling the game are short, decisive wrist flicks, rather than pantomimed sport.
And once that happens, the lack of responsiveness becomes a real problem-- you're not sure what to do. I found myself adrift. I couldn't fall back on any innate knowledge of how to swing a tennis racquet, and the game wasn't responsive enough for me to figure out the connection between my wrist-flicking and what happened on screen. Timing seemed more important than anything. And once you've reduced the game to timing your wrist-flicks, two things become evident: the Wii is less fun than playing regular button-pushing games, and it's way less fun than doing boxing/baseball/tennis for real.
I guess this kind of explains why I'm not a console gamer.
Reality: the ultimate in high-def immersive gaming.
Readers' Comments
I enjoyed the two times I've played the Wii thus far. But I've been digging on games for a long time now and perhaps my barrier to enjoyment is lower or something.
Raser, since you're not about the Wii experience, why don't you satisfy your inner hacker with some Wiimote fun like these:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/245
Some games will take better advantage of the Wii's motion tracking technology than their earliest one; I might have had the sensorbar's sensitivity set too low (Anything is possible considering the sensitivity setting is... well, not all that human ready http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/settingsSensorBar.jsp ); I might have the sensor bar in a bad location.
Give it another chance (or don't, your choice, Mister), maybe your experience can be improved. Or worsened. Or stay the same.
It is just two groupings of IR LEDs, nothing less and nothing more. The sensitivity setting they're talking about is an adjustment for the IR camera that's in the Wiimote itself and has nothing to do with the "sensor bar".
Raser can attest that I'm not a type A person; but FFS, call it a duck only if it is, in fact, a duck.
And yeah, I really do frown upon half-assed systems. If motion tracking isn't ready for prime time, then don't do motion tracking.
And I think I touched on this in my post, but games that simulate stuff you can actually go and DO really don't appeal to me. (Well, racing games, but that's about it.) I like games like Mario, or Katamari Damacy, or the Lego Star Wars series-- anything that's more of a puzzle than a simulation. I think that's a big part of why I find that trading a high-fidelity input device like a PS2 controller for the Wii controller is a bad trade-off.
So yeah, the Wii DEFINITELY runs afoul of my personal biases. So it's not the Wii, it's me.
A comparable device, and system to read it in, in the past few years would have been many thousands of dollars and not much better accuracy. I judge the Wiimote accuracy to be centimeter plus. By comparison, we have a system at work that is sub-millimeter accurate over a larger volume that can track 16 points. Of course it was over $100,000, part of a larger $2 million facility.
Yes, the Wiimote and Wii system has warts, but the home VR system is now here and people are enjoying it. Remember; the Atari 2600, while fondly remembered by many, had its shortcomings and was soundly improved on by successive systems. The Wii will also be improved on.
As for simulating reality, I can take it or leave it. Simulation is only a part of the whole, I find the IO possibilities to be the most interesting. Consumer level 6-axis control was a VR person's wet dream up 'till the Wii, now it's reachable without the need for grants and serious funding.