Nintendo Wii – Latest on Sensor Bar, Internet, VOIP
All the Wii news you need to know inside.
One of the aspects of the Wii hardware that Nintendo seems to have deliberately played down a little since the console’s E3 unveiling is the sensor bar. Perhaps because it’s a tad unwieldy? (See picture to the right of this news).
Also from the pic, you will see that the sensor has a rather long power lead, which kind of ruins the wireless dream we had of a digital future, where our homes were beautifully minimalist pleasure palaces. Ah well. It’s a dream we’ve had since we were young men. Maybe it will always be a dream.
Reports from our guys who clapped eyes on the thing at E3 suggest it’s around a foot long. All the Wii’s we saw at the show were using wired Wii-motes, hence the sensors not being on the show floor.
We’ll bring you details on the exact dimensions and everything else you want to know about the Wii’s sensor bar as soon as we get them from the good people of Nintendo.
In other Wii news, a number of unconfirmed reports have come SPOnG’s way suggesting that the Wii-mote will double up as a VOIP microphone/speaker unit, which sounds plausible enough. Besides anything else, it would also mean you would be able to communicate with your mates whilst playing Wii online without having to wear a daft-looking headset a la Xbox Live.
The Wii controller also has force feedback functionality and an internal speaker for audio, as well as an expansion port, as demonstrated at Nintendo’s E3 media conference. Whilst the idea of sound appearing to ‘travel’ between your controller and your TV is a nice touch, it’s hardly revolutionary to anyone who’s played any game supporting Dolby 5.1
SPOnG really hopes that this VOIP-solution for Wii is on the cards, and again we’ll be badgering Nintendo to confirm or deny this cool-sounding feature as soon as possible.
And in yet more Wii news, Opera VP Scott Hedrick (Opera, if you don’t recall, being Nintendo’s browser of choice) has revealed more details on how you will use the Wii-mote to surf the Internet.
Speaking to IGN, Hedrick said: "The remote control is an extremely advanced tool. Opera plans to use this to its full advantage and it will provide an intuitive way to surf the Web. Imagine the possibilities in terms of surfing with a motion sensitive remote control."
Hedrick was cagey on details though, adding: "I cannot specifically comment on the lack of keyboard, but many devices running Opera don't have keyboards, such as the Nintendo DS, and feature on-screen keyboards to solve this problem."
He went on to say: "I believe that Web technology will increasingly be a part of the gaming experience, whether it's live content being pushed onto games or you're just checking your Web mail while playing Mario Kart.”
Bah! SPOnG is not sure about this anymore. We don’t want to feel a need to check our email in between bouts of gaming. That would only bring us right back down to earth.
Also from the pic, you will see that the sensor has a rather long power lead, which kind of ruins the wireless dream we had of a digital future, where our homes were beautifully minimalist pleasure palaces. Ah well. It’s a dream we’ve had since we were young men. Maybe it will always be a dream.
Reports from our guys who clapped eyes on the thing at E3 suggest it’s around a foot long. All the Wii’s we saw at the show were using wired Wii-motes, hence the sensors not being on the show floor.
We’ll bring you details on the exact dimensions and everything else you want to know about the Wii’s sensor bar as soon as we get them from the good people of Nintendo.
In other Wii news, a number of unconfirmed reports have come SPOnG’s way suggesting that the Wii-mote will double up as a VOIP microphone/speaker unit, which sounds plausible enough. Besides anything else, it would also mean you would be able to communicate with your mates whilst playing Wii online without having to wear a daft-looking headset a la Xbox Live.
The Wii controller also has force feedback functionality and an internal speaker for audio, as well as an expansion port, as demonstrated at Nintendo’s E3 media conference. Whilst the idea of sound appearing to ‘travel’ between your controller and your TV is a nice touch, it’s hardly revolutionary to anyone who’s played any game supporting Dolby 5.1
SPOnG really hopes that this VOIP-solution for Wii is on the cards, and again we’ll be badgering Nintendo to confirm or deny this cool-sounding feature as soon as possible.
And in yet more Wii news, Opera VP Scott Hedrick (Opera, if you don’t recall, being Nintendo’s browser of choice) has revealed more details on how you will use the Wii-mote to surf the Internet.
Speaking to IGN, Hedrick said: "The remote control is an extremely advanced tool. Opera plans to use this to its full advantage and it will provide an intuitive way to surf the Web. Imagine the possibilities in terms of surfing with a motion sensitive remote control."
Hedrick was cagey on details though, adding: "I cannot specifically comment on the lack of keyboard, but many devices running Opera don't have keyboards, such as the Nintendo DS, and feature on-screen keyboards to solve this problem."
He went on to say: "I believe that Web technology will increasingly be a part of the gaming experience, whether it's live content being pushed onto games or you're just checking your Web mail while playing Mario Kart.”
Bah! SPOnG is not sure about this anymore. We don’t want to feel a need to check our email in between bouts of gaming. That would only bring us right back down to earth.
Companies:
Nintendo
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Comments
crs117 24 May 2006 21:54
1/5
As good as 5.1, 7.1 or upwards surround sound systems are, they are still unable to place a specific sound in a specific location within their area of coverage. This means that you would not be able to simulate a tennis ball hitting the racket in the exact space where it was hit. Same thing for shooting the bow or swinging the sword. The fact that you can hear your bow snap and hear the arrow trail from your remote (bow), at its specific destination in 3d space, to its final destination in surround sound certianly 1 up's any previous concept of spatial sound for home entertainment.
I very much look forward to all the cool ways this can impact gaming and i think this will be a very revolutionary concept of the controller that right now is not fully understood.
I really hope that they put in a decent speaker (not a cheapo mobo style speaker), that will reproduce good sounds. I also hope that the system will tailor the sound specifically for that speaker as i know many developers will probably overload the capabilities of such a tiny horn based speaker.
I very much look forward to all the cool ways this can impact gaming and i think this will be a very revolutionary concept of the controller that right now is not fully understood.
I really hope that they put in a decent speaker (not a cheapo mobo style speaker), that will reproduce good sounds. I also hope that the system will tailor the sound specifically for that speaker as i know many developers will probably overload the capabilities of such a tiny horn based speaker.
vault 13 25 May 2006 01:29
2/5
You obviously haven't heard a good surround setup. And although the sound won't actually be coming from your hand when you swing the racket, you really wouldn't be able to tell.
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crs117 25 May 2006 20:25
3/5
vault 13 wrote:
You obviously haven't heard a good surround setup. And although the sound won't actually be coming from your hand when you swing the racket, you really wouldn't be able to tell.
You obviously dont understand the physics of sound waves and sound sources. Surround sound does exactly what it states, places sounds that surround you, but it cannot create the sensation of a spatially placed sound within the 2d area that the speakers create.
This means that if you have 7.1 speakers (7 sound sources plus one unidirectional sub) you can effectively create the illusion of sound coming from any direction along the curve of the circumference of speakers (if they are placed in a circle) but not anywhere within the radii of the cicrle. It would be impossible with current setups for a 7.1 system to produce a spatial sound anywhere inside that magical area, which is what the wii remote will be able to do.
On a side note, I do music production for a living (with a little video and software engineering on the side), so I have a limited amount of experience dealing with sound and speakers.
LUPOS 25 May 2006 21:58
4/5
perhaps i'm incorrect, please feel free to remedi that if so... but i was under the ipresion that through the use of multiple chanels soudns could be placed anywhere with that field.
for example:
put on soem head phones... play a sound effect file or somethign that doesnt have different channels but will coem out of both speakers... in theory... it should sound as though its comming from within your head as that the only way your mind interpret hearing the exact same thign at the exact soem volume from both ears. in stero speakers (that arent on your head) the sound will be infront of you (as your ears can percieve that on there own) but it will apear to travel from side to side if the balance is adjusted. hence why a tv with stero speakers can make sound apear to come from the characters on screen.
no take the stero concept and place those two speakers anywhere you want in relation to your head and you should be able make the sound apear to come from basically anywhere.
Now throw in several speakers ina circle aroudn you and you aught to be able to make sound apear to come from anywhere within that space by fadding between multiple speakers. Thats why in a good action game you can hear bullets wiz past you. as the sound is not only the sound of a bullet passing you a mic but its also being gradualy transitioned between multipel speakers to adjust its location.
OF course pinpointing the location of the wii-mote in relation to your speakers inorder to mimic this effect on other systems is pretty much impossible. not to mention that your surroudn has no Z-axis so the wii-mote definitly does offer some worthwhile opportunities.
My conmcerns are a) that it wont be of a good enough quality and b) that i wont be able to hear it over my surround sound system no matter how good they make it cause putting high watage in it will draine the battery.
</my thoughts>
________
for example:
put on soem head phones... play a sound effect file or somethign that doesnt have different channels but will coem out of both speakers... in theory... it should sound as though its comming from within your head as that the only way your mind interpret hearing the exact same thign at the exact soem volume from both ears. in stero speakers (that arent on your head) the sound will be infront of you (as your ears can percieve that on there own) but it will apear to travel from side to side if the balance is adjusted. hence why a tv with stero speakers can make sound apear to come from the characters on screen.
no take the stero concept and place those two speakers anywhere you want in relation to your head and you should be able make the sound apear to come from basically anywhere.
Now throw in several speakers ina circle aroudn you and you aught to be able to make sound apear to come from anywhere within that space by fadding between multiple speakers. Thats why in a good action game you can hear bullets wiz past you. as the sound is not only the sound of a bullet passing you a mic but its also being gradualy transitioned between multipel speakers to adjust its location.
OF course pinpointing the location of the wii-mote in relation to your speakers inorder to mimic this effect on other systems is pretty much impossible. not to mention that your surroudn has no Z-axis so the wii-mote definitly does offer some worthwhile opportunities.
My conmcerns are a) that it wont be of a good enough quality and b) that i wont be able to hear it over my surround sound system no matter how good they make it cause putting high watage in it will draine the battery.
</my thoughts>
________
crs117 26 May 2006 06:22
5/5
Lupos,
First of all the best point you made was that you had a third axis in which sound can emitted giving you not only surround sound confined in a fixed 2d plane, but in true 3d space wherever the wiimote is located. This is one great feature.
Secondly, the wiimote is not in a fixed place in space so where sounds come from and then go to (to the other speakers) is going to be completely dependant on where the wiimote is, and usually the sounds will reflect exactly what the wiimote just interacted with.
Thirdly, discrete surround sound (5.1 and up) is simply a simulation, and while it can be pretty convincing, it cannot create sounds that are spatially any closer to you then the closest speaker in the setup. Sure you can tell if a sound came from behind, left, right, or front of you, but it is impossible to tell its relative distance from you.
There are different cues your brain automatically uses to to determine location of sounds that surround you. Many of them have to do with how the sound interacts with the environment in addition to hearing the sound directly. This includes reverberation from the floors, ceilings, walls, and other objects that surround the object. This means that if a speaker is fixed then it will not interact with the environment the same way that a hand held moving speaker would. The wiimote speaker will actually interact with the environment around you as you move it.
Next up...you cannot directly control how a sound wave expands after the sound has been produced. This means that once the sound is produced, the wave then expands in 3d space from its source and you no longer have control over how it ripples in space. The only way to cancel sound waves is to produce a phase inversed sound wave of the exact same wave signal and point them directly at each other (this is how noise canceling ear phones work). Basically the speakers produce opposable air contractions that when they bump into each other they eliminate each others energy, which cancels the sound.
So there is no way to control sound waves to produce a spatial sound within the actual area of the surround sound speakers that would represent the sound of a sword clang 1 foot in front of you (that actually would bounce off the walls in the same room you are in).
First of all the best point you made was that you had a third axis in which sound can emitted giving you not only surround sound confined in a fixed 2d plane, but in true 3d space wherever the wiimote is located. This is one great feature.
Secondly, the wiimote is not in a fixed place in space so where sounds come from and then go to (to the other speakers) is going to be completely dependant on where the wiimote is, and usually the sounds will reflect exactly what the wiimote just interacted with.
Thirdly, discrete surround sound (5.1 and up) is simply a simulation, and while it can be pretty convincing, it cannot create sounds that are spatially any closer to you then the closest speaker in the setup. Sure you can tell if a sound came from behind, left, right, or front of you, but it is impossible to tell its relative distance from you.
There are different cues your brain automatically uses to to determine location of sounds that surround you. Many of them have to do with how the sound interacts with the environment in addition to hearing the sound directly. This includes reverberation from the floors, ceilings, walls, and other objects that surround the object. This means that if a speaker is fixed then it will not interact with the environment the same way that a hand held moving speaker would. The wiimote speaker will actually interact with the environment around you as you move it.
Next up...you cannot directly control how a sound wave expands after the sound has been produced. This means that once the sound is produced, the wave then expands in 3d space from its source and you no longer have control over how it ripples in space. The only way to cancel sound waves is to produce a phase inversed sound wave of the exact same wave signal and point them directly at each other (this is how noise canceling ear phones work). Basically the speakers produce opposable air contractions that when they bump into each other they eliminate each others energy, which cancels the sound.
So there is no way to control sound waves to produce a spatial sound within the actual area of the surround sound speakers that would represent the sound of a sword clang 1 foot in front of you (that actually would bounce off the walls in the same room you are in).