Revolution In Gaming

The Wii took participatory physical gaming, as seen over the years in Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, and put it in our living rooms. It never ceases to amaze me what the Wii can do.

Today, I played WarioWare Smooth Moves for the first time, and tried a minigame where you have to dance like the onscreen characters, and the accelerometer in your WiiMote knows if you’re doing it right or not.

With the next iteration, I’m sure we’ll be able to dance against our friends over our broadband connections and see them both represented in the virtual reality that is the game and also through a webcam.

Today, Engadget featured the new video from the now famous Johnny Lee, who has figured out how to use a WiiMote and Wii sensor bar to dynamically change the screen’s perspective when you move your head around, effectively creating 3D immerside environments in your living room. You can’t begin to understand how crazy this would be to use until you see the whole video.

Imagine a 3D first person shooter where ducking behind your couch does the same in the game and protects you from being shot. I hope the next-generation gaming consoles are a lot more flexible with regard to what you can use to control them; if the next XBOX generation of PlayStation doesn’t have IR sensors, I don’t think they’ll sell to their true potential.

Via Engadget.