From that article:
Dan Greenawalt, Creative Director of Turn10, creators of Forza, talked about more of the haptic a and rumble motors in the controller. The individual rumble in the triggers are being used to provide feedback on the tire performance, so players will have even more awareness of grip and braking. While that’s impressive, the video showing a Prague course in 1080p and 60fps was even more amazing.
Oh man, this so makes me want to get an Xbox One. I know about 3 or 4 Qt3 members made fun of me last time I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to feeling the increased feedback on these new controllers, so at the risk of being ridiculed again, I just have to say again that this is the aspect I’m looking forward to the most in the next generation. Already I’m constantly amazed while playing certain racing games just how much they get the “feel” of driving a car down by having the right amount of feedback on the controllers. I mean, they’re just gamepads for god’s sake, they’re not even racing wheel controllers, and yet, I can feel the rumble as I drive in gravel, when I hit a bump, when my left tires are off the track, or when my tires lose traction. They always have the right amount of feedback so that it feels sort of like it does in real life when I’ve done those same things with my car.
And now, the prospect of that “sort of feels like” to become even better, to get even closer to the road and feel even more subtle feedback, especially in racing games? Oh man, I’m so looking forward to that. As a racing game fan who hates using racing wheels, I am just really looking forward to this.
EDIT: I wish Gran Turismo 6 was also coming out for launch. Then this extreme pull I have towards Forza 5 would at least be counterbalanced at launch by the PS4. But instead we have DriveClub, which I have no real information about yet. Turn 10 and the Forza series has proven to be really reliable in terms of quality.
Joe_M
3208
Yes, when vibrating triggers are one’s most anticipated next gen feature, well, it is somewhat baffling. Or depressing? To each their own, I suppose.
OK, that is AWESOME. I also like the kinect stuff that was mentioned in the previous article. Sounds excellent. I just hope we can turn kinect on/off whenever we want. When I use my Xbox3360 to do Netflix it’s annoying as any movement is interpreted as a hand wave and it interrupts our movie.
I’m in for rumble triggers. I see the coolness factor there for racing games and beyond (I’m convinced that the triggers will go slack when you are out of ammo).
But by far, I thought the Kinect news was more interesting. Sniper kills will never be the same.
Editer
3211
I’m really sad Sony removed the camera from the PS4 in order to win the pricing battle. Not because of the price advantage, but because back in February it looked like both platforms would include a camera and a microphone. Which would have meant there was lots of potential for finding new ways to incorporate those in future games. Now, with every Xbox owner guaranteed to have both, but probably only a small percentage of PS4 owners opting for the camera, the potential for deep, smart incorporation in cross-platform games is lessened.
Sony’s own sales page for the PS4 currently has the camera and lit controller as the lead image on the product overview for the PS4. That, and the incorporation of a light on the controller that only exists to work with the camera, makes me think this was a last-minute marketing decision to win on price, at the expense of platform capability. Kudos from a business standpoint, but I think gamers lose potential innovation due to this, because it’s not going to be worth investing many development resources on with PS4.
DennyA, the guys at Gamespot (or maybe it was IGN or Kotaku) filed a story on this very decision. Your suspicions are entirely spot on.
The gist of the article was that Sony confirmed that they were fully committed to pushing the Sony Eye this cycle in a big way. Approximately a month before E3, they pulled the plug on the camera because they felt they needed an edge on pricing. I forget the name of the writer but his lament was also yours (and mine). That by dropping the PSEye, Sony hurt both themselves (every PS4 controller now has a fairly useless light sensor that few will ever use) and gaming overall (by having cameras and microphones as a part of the next gen experience, third party developers would have come up with cool experiences).
The Kinect stuff this cycle interests me much more.
Hmmm? I haven’t seen Denny post anything in over 10 pages. Can you queue us in on this conversation a bit?
Right, because gamers love paying $100 more for useless gold plating.
I for one am glad that Sony actually listened to their customers and did not forcefully include an expensive piece of hardware that no mainstream game will use and most gamers will never take advantage of.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If they don’t include the hardware in every box, developers won’t design for it. MS took a chance with kinect on xbone. Time will tell if it was the right decision.
I guess I’m not “most gamers” because I am excited as hell about what the kinect might bring. I don’t want every new game to be exactly like every old game except with better graphics.
RickH
3217
I know that’s been the rule for a lot of add-ons over the years, but this situation may be different. Since most third-party releases can count on 100% of Xbone and x% of PS4 customers having access to camera/mic features, it could be that the cost of development for these features can be justified (and could serve as an incentive to PS4 owners to get cameras). However, I can’t speak to the quality of the PS4 camera/mic system or the programming differences between the Kinect and the Move-style pointing devices. So maybe it’s not a realistic belief.
The playstation camera stuff is analogous to the wiimote, isn’t it? The kinect2 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more sophisticated. I’m sure some of the control concepts could translate, but they won’t provide the same experiences.
If motion control takes off, the xbone will have a huge advantage. But that’s a big “if”. The kinect1 sucked and the wii motion control was ultimately proven to be a gimmick, only really compelling with one game-- the pack-in, wii sports.
I guess I understand how the concept of more fidelity and processing power can be exciting for Kinect 2.0, but I just don’t feel it’s going to matter much to me. I think most games will still use it in gimmicky ways. Publishers are always going to go for the cheapest implementation, so I expect more exercise games, waggle to QTE stuff, and really shitty concepts like the half-assed head tracking and air streering wheel in Forza 4. The Kinect kiddie games were good, but I’m not a kid.
The only use of 360 Kinect I really liked was the quicksave ability added to Skyrim, but that had less to do with Kinect and more to do with the quicksave.
The only really cool stuff I ever saw for Kinect was the stuff people hacked up for hospitals and researchers.
I agree, I don’t see Kinect being really compelling as a gaming control scheme until it achieves the precision of something like Leap Motion. And that’s at least a generation away.
All of the real-world and theoretical Xbox One camera/Kinect uses I’ve heard bandied about so far are things like detecting noise in your real world environment and using that to attract zombies, or making sure you are sitting really still so as not to be noticed in a stealth game, which to me seem not even just neutrally worthless but actually actively horrible if they can’t be disabled. They smack of exactly the sort of problems Microsoft keeps getting into (eg. the 6 foot space requirement for the original Kinect), where they assume a perfect game-playing environment when such things are extremely rare outside of their test labs.
Did MS actually say that stuff?
That does sound horrible.
Editer
3223
I deleted it. I was just making a completely uncontroversial comment that I was sad that Sony’s decisions meant that voice/camera wouldn’t be ubiquitous this generation, which would have a negative effect on cross-platform game design. But I deleted the message right after posting it because I’m paranoid about commenting on anything related to the day job here given the propensity for “news” websites to lift quotes from forums nowadays and attribute it to “that guy who works for xx company.” Oh, for the old Qt3… and the old Internet, for that matter. :)
This may sound odd, but I think you’re going to see a lot of Kinect functions mapped to the touchpad on the PS4 I think. Not the full on motion games clearly, but in something like Rainbow 6 where you’ll point with your arm or hold it up to order your squad you’ll do on the PS4 touchpad by swiping forward or back. That’s how I see some of this stuff shaking out at least.
Good riddance if you ask me. I don’t want motion controls in my games. If I want to flail around playing a video game I’ll go outside and do something. I play a game to sit and relax. Not have to gesture at my box with motion controls.
Zylon
3226
Instead Xboners will get treated to Wii/3DS syndrome, where games will make inappropriate use of Kinect because it’s there.
