For the "real illusion"-the frontiers of interactive technology in the video game field

The gaming industry has been trying to attract the mass groups that have been driven away by complex operations, but the most successful is Japan's Nintendo. In the last game industry cycle, Nintendo successfully exploited the touch-manipulation of NDS and body-sensing Wii, greatly expanding the game's layout in home entertainment, and many people who never played games began to buy. Of course, thanks to "Avatar", let the 3D experience from the trend of the mainstream, which makes the game industry is ready, full of expectations.

Next, we will introduce you to the market in a year, the world's 3 most focused game equipment, they are the world's top three game manufacturers: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, representing the future of the game industry trends (excluding China, of course), hope to bring valuable references.

"More real body sense"--playstation move

(September 15, 2010, PS3 's body sense Controller)

The first is a piece of Sony's promotional video.

Sony launched the "Camera + light-emitting track Ball" portfolio, successfully avoided the Wii's monopoly of the field of the game controller domain.

The specific game mode is: The camera first recognizes the color behind the person, if found that there is no color, it will make the trackball into a specific color. If it is a multiplayer game, it will show a variety of different colors. Trajectory of the track ball will be captured by the camera, and with the handle of the three-axis motion induction, triaxial acceleration induction and gravity induction technology, to achieve accurate action capture.

Sony believes the controller will enhance the impact of the body sense game in the core player community, so that the Wii can not be well supported by the mainstream of the game can be controlled by a precise sense of the body to show a new face.

The following figure is to install the move handle and grab the shape of the expansion shell, with the PS3 on the widely popular shooting class game.

"You are the controller"-Microsoft's Kinect

(November 4, 2010, XBOX360 Body Sense Controller)

First, a piece of Microsoft's promotional video (if you can't see it, try to set it to SD mode)

The following image is the Kinect, as a peripheral to the XBOX360 console. Its concept is very innovative, that is, you can control the game without a handle.

The principle is to use the camera on top of the TV to capture the movement of players in three-dimensional space and to use a sensor to capture strength and depth. It will create a 3D image of your room, then analyze your body's motion and match the action to the Xbox virtual doll by 1:1. Of course, according to the already published Kinect parameters, at least 1.5 meters away from the use, only to identify 2 players and allow another 4 players to watch.

In addition, the system will be able to identify human faces, gestures and identify sounds. To this end, it uses a 4-microphone array and an infrared emitter plus 1 infrared VGA camera groups to ensure that different people's voices can be distinguished and that the built-in motors help focus and automatically adjust posture.

According to a new patent published by Microsoft. The Kinect can even recognize the opponent's language.

In addition, in the ongoing Kinect expansion study, Microsoft is trying to use Kinect as a dynamic capture lens, watching the player's position in front of the TV, and adding a polarizer in front of the TV so that the left and right eye images of the TV are projected directly onto the player's eyeball, so that regardless The 3D effect of the game can be correctly projected, the following is related video:

"Let 3D anytime"--Nintendo 3DS

(March 2011 ago, the first open-hole 3D handheld game)

Sony and Microsoft are in action, Nintendo is not sleeping, they are about to launch the world's first optical device can see the 3d effect of the game consoles, and is a portable game consoles, first or their promotional video.

The following figure is the 3DS that was publicly played at the E3 game show this May:

Compared to the previous NDS, this game still uses the control of the next screen touch, but added a remote joystick controller, a main Menu home button, a 3d depth regulator. The console is only a 3D screen with a naked eye and a camera at the top of the screen to capture the player's position. The back of the game, there are 2 cameras, you can shoot around the scene and real-time generation of 3d screen.

"Hand-to-hand combat"--comparative analysis and prospect of three kinds of game equipments.

With Nintendo in the last five years, the game consoles in advance to delineate the basic nature of the game's patents, leading to Sony and Microsoft in follow-up, have to spend a lot of money to seek new technology, and these technologies in the cost is far higher than the Wii's infrared signal reception technology, while the experience has been further enhanced.

The Kinect, developed by Microsoft, is the first home gaming device to disengage from the human controller, using body posture and sound to manipulate the game, making it important in the history of the game regardless of whether it succeeds or fails. It is expected that more and more new game games will emerge, and users will be able to show a sense of freshness to these gaming experiences. Imagine, such as in the "Call of Duty" and other war shooting games, can use voice command computer partners to fight, move the body to dodge, but also close to the body, then the game really is too charming!

But good ideas don't mean that Kinect will be able to beat other rivals commercially. The first is whether the game players can be accustomed to playing with empty hands, such as throwing away the handle will lose the "force feedback" system, if the game in a bomb came, the hand has not a little vibration of the feeling, then the fun greatly discounted. Secondly, from the experience of the Wii after the release of the years, the body sense game in the design of the operation of complexity and game depth synchronization of the problem. Because the game is simply relying on the body action is too single, so that the game with complex props can not be loaded, which led to the recent years in Europe and the United States the most popular shooting and racing mainstream masterpiece eventually return to the handle.

Sony's move controller, aside from the technology and simply from the interactive experience, can be viewed as the Wii's z-axis-enhanced version, but it's enough for it. Sony's future Home Entertainment program is: PS3 game consoles +3d TV + Blu-ray storage, and through the acquisition of MGM etc already in the film and television content has a considerable competitiveness. Body sense interaction for Sony, can be a good supplement in the Non-core player layer of the missing, the game products into the ordinary family. The only question is whether home users are tired of the endless body games on the Wii, and why buy a move if they already have a cheaper Wii?

Nintendo's 3DS, as an upgraded version of the previous generation of consoles, has a comprehensive interactive experience. The new console not only retains the original touch screen, built-in microphone, front camera three kinds of equipment, but also increased the 3D shooting, rocker and home page call out keys, enhanced network function. Historically, the biggest advantage of dual-screen design is to solve the problem of viewing the UI layout and game information on small mobile game terminals, which is not only reserved, but also enhanced by changing the top screen to the widescreen 3D open hole screen. It takes 3 means to enhance the application value of the open hole 3D, one is to increase the rocker, so that the 3D space control more flexible. The second is to increase the number of 3D cameras, by shooting the surrounding scene to generate real-time, so as to increase the game play. Three is to add 3D depth of the regulator, to avoid the human parallax or visual range habits caused by 3D effect. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo will face Apple's challenges in the handheld game, but the overall strength of the next few years will remain.

Summary and thinking

As the 3 mainstream gaming equipment is driven by the world's top three game industry, the main product, body sense +3d will be in the past 1-3 years to become the trend of research and development trends, and 3-5 years as the mainstream of the game industry. With the emergence of competitive products, these 2 features will gradually deepen to the mainstream of the game, which has a higher demand for interactive design, first of all, UI interface in the need to improve the information load based on the user's body sense control habits. Secondly, in the 3D visual scene, the interaction of virtual reality experience increases, the UI will be built into the scene and the situation gradually, instead of just hovering on the screen like the subtitles of the movie, this will test the design imagination of the interactive designer greatly. Finally, the social trend of online games will be more and more, in the interactive design to give users a more convenient and strong sense of existence experience, especially in the multiplayer cooperative task of the game.

If there's more to think about, that is, the concept of these products will be in the near future spread to other areas of the IT industry, how do we play the characteristics of these hardware platforms, with a richer imagination, the use of technological changes in the opportunity to pre-empt the user to bring a unique experience?

I think this is indeed a proposition worthy of our thinking.

(This article originates from Tencent CDC Blog, please indicate the source when reprint)