TechCrunch talked up a Finnish startup called Ball-It which is trying to push a new wireless controller that will be breaking TVs and other furniture in your living room in the near future.
The controller contains sensors to sense just about any movement and even squeezes and passes it to the console or computer. The demo on CrunchGear looks pretty cool (you can sort of skip the first half if you want).
Outside of being a largely direct competitor to the Wii controller (Microsoft? Sony? You listening? You’d better get in there quick!), I think the best parts of it are the fact that it’s smaller (it’s the size of a friggin golf ball!) and wireless (i.e. none of this bullshit IR that requires you to point a part of the controller at the screen all the time). It can really free things up when it comes to the more “active” gaming experience.
Of course, the downside is that–just like the Wii-mote–it will be limited a bit in terms of gaming experiences. Even in the demo, you can see that the movements in the real world tend to be jittery when translated to the computer (note the basketball as the guy’s talking flails around like a loose electron). That might be a calibration or sensitivity issue but it’s still a potential issue game devs will have to deal with.
And while the Wii has plenty of games that use the Wii-mote they aren’t always that good. Shooter games have the issue of accuracy (I can never seem to get the console to realize where it should think my controller is aimed at when I look down its length) and sword fighting requires big movements.
Still, if you checked out that video you’d see how well the controller worked for running and jumping (though I think there was a bit of a delay on the jump which can be annoying). It’ll be interesting to see who picks it up and how well it will penetrate. As the days of the PlayStation seem numbered in my mind (it’s not like it’s going to disappear…it’s just not the hot platform anymore and if my game library is a judge of it, I’ve got a 10:1 ratio of XBox360 games over PS3 games…for a reason), this is really Microsoft’s ball to play (pun intended).
If MS can license that sucker and figure out how to attach, include or incorporate the controller’s technology into its console bundles, it can finally take a chunk (a potentially huge chunk) out of Nintendo’s new-found success. Of course, if Nintendo can get it first, they can further solidify their place in the market but it won’t be quite as revolutionary. It would just be a downsizing of the controllers–and would make people look even funnier as they play with the controller in their pockets when someone walks in.
The tech has been around for a while–it was profiled almost a year ago here–so you’ve got to wonder if it’s just a funding thing or if it’s because they had trouble figuring out how to leverage the tech properly.
I guess we’ll see. I’m sure the main console players have heard about it by now. Time will tell if they pick up on it and grab it before it’s too late. If they don’t then Ball-It might have to go the route of the obscure controllers like the PS Eye, the Novint Falcon, and the NeuroSky which are all trying to carve out some sort of niche in a market that doesn’t require them for anything.
kn
The video doesn’t do the tech justice, there’s no delay and the motion sensing is also very sensitive. Of course will require games that take full advantage of the capabilities of the ball (just like in the case of the Wii), that’s what the SDK is for. Reason for taking a while for this to come to market is that it’s not easy for a startup to get something like this going and orchestrated properly. And not like there’s unlimited funding out there either;-) Anyway, there’s huge potential in there, now we’ll see how far that will take the ball…
I’m all too aware of the trials of building a start-up. The trick is, will someone pick it up or will it just bounce around (no pun intended) the fringes of the market like the PS Eye or the other peripherals that people thought were interesting but not enough to use in a lot of games.