Microsoft Research has finally released its free SDK for developing Windows applications that utilize Kinect -- the natural user interface device originally sold as an Xbox 360 peripheral.
I've never thought much of Kinect as a game controller. As much time as Microsoft has spent trying to sell it over the last couple of E3s, the only really great thing they managed to do was sell it as a means of interfacing with the main menu hub. The games have all been iffy, especially attempts to integrate it into the traditional genres with anything other than voice recognition. It's hard to make immersive game experiences without any sort of controller, even if only because of constraints on the camera and physical movement of your avatar around the game environment. The result is sports minigames, dance games, and an assortment of on rails experiences -- not bad intrinsically, but certainly more limited than Microsoft wants us to believe.
Still, the basic interface manipulation powers -- both based on physical, three dimensional gesturing and voice recognition -- is potentially revelatory. Looking through the hacks that have been popping up since the initial release of the device, you can see so many applications for recognition of three dimensional movement of the hands and arms alone -- and this sort of tracking makes full body identification essential so as to not get distracted by other noise. I'm greatly hopeful for the sorts of applications that will result from heavier use of Kinect and other NUI devices in traditional computing.
Still, Microsoft was brilliant in releasing this as a toy first. Even if that isn't ever going to be the best use of the technology, we needed a phase where people were excited about the sheer novelty of this thing in order to develop a proper vocabulary for developing with it. Had this originally shipped as some much vaunted peripheral (a la the Magic Mouse), it would have been laughed at for its lack of support and non-existent consistency of use between applications. Instead, we had a period where that was expected because its primary purpose was as a fun diversion -- a way to sucker people out of their money instead of as a meaningful productivity tool. Months later now, we have experience determining current best practices for recognizing and translating certain behaviors and a proper set of verbs for describing interaction with this thing and an API for productivity development that supports these verbs out of the box.
Kudos, Microsoft. Here's hoping that you can pioneer NUI support in Windows 8 as you continue your positive trend of starting to give a damn about your customers.
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Hacking, Piracy, and "Freedom"
Warning, strong language ahead.
This shit has got to stop.
As an advocate of Free Software and the uninterrupted flow of information between individuals, I'm all for more open standards and practices. As a fan of the creative process and human advancement in general, though, I'm increasingly of the opinion assholes who think that they should be able to do whatever they want with technology deserve to be put in jail.
Yes, patent law is a mess -- especially in regard to software patents. Yes, Copyright has been bloated to an extent that unrestricted use of creative products is now nearly non-existent. Yes the DMCA is an overly-restrictive piece of legislation that often keeps us from being true owners of our possessions. That doesn't mean vigilantism is acceptable, and that's exactly what this shit is.
All the rhetoric about the initial hack being in response to Sony's removal of the option to install Linux on the PS3 is BS. People wanted to have more complete ways of accessing unpaid content on the system, and they would have gone about doing it even if they could still run a secondary OS. It's juvenile and fueled by an absurd sense of entitlement that seeks to actively deny the existence of anything remotely like a commodity in the digital world. After all, if it's all just infinitely reproducible ones and zeros, why should there be a cost?
You see, boys and girls, if you had even the most basic economic background (or a hint of common sense and self-awareness), you'd know that there's this thing called "profit motive". The only reason Sony has any reason to make PS3s is because they can make money off of it, and since they don't make a whole lot of money on the system itself, they rely on licensing fees for the games that are available on it. The only reason companies have incentive to make the games that Sony pulls most of its profit off of is because they know that they can still pull a reasonable profit for themselves.
If somebody finds a flaw in the system that makes it trivial to play games or consume content you don't actually own, then the companies that make those games have less incentive to do so, Sony has less incentive to make new systems, and none of us actually get any new content to enjoy on our newly "freed" piece of technology. So, when you go about trying to spread your exploit and the accompanying gospel of economic non-participation as loud and fast as you can instead of making Sony aware of the flaw, they are going to use their entirely legal (if not entirely reasonable) rights to try to not only stop you but to pump you dry in the process.
The response to this is not to say, "Oh, Sony is an evil megacorporation that wants to force us to actually pay to enjoy the material they produce!" and call them names while maliciously attacking their servers with your illegally acquired bot-nets. The response is to go, "Wow, that guy really should have seen that coming" and go on buying or not buying things based on your sense of the reasonableness of their market value.
So, all of you little script kiddies out there, go to hell and get a job. If you think things are too expensive, go without for a change. There are so many cheap ways to consume all of the media you could possibly want that you really have no excuse. If you think that the systems are broken and favor corporations too strongly, get involved in the political process like a goddamn adult.
This shit has got to stop.
As an advocate of Free Software and the uninterrupted flow of information between individuals, I'm all for more open standards and practices. As a fan of the creative process and human advancement in general, though, I'm increasingly of the opinion assholes who think that they should be able to do whatever they want with technology deserve to be put in jail.
Yes, patent law is a mess -- especially in regard to software patents. Yes, Copyright has been bloated to an extent that unrestricted use of creative products is now nearly non-existent. Yes the DMCA is an overly-restrictive piece of legislation that often keeps us from being true owners of our possessions. That doesn't mean vigilantism is acceptable, and that's exactly what this shit is.
All the rhetoric about the initial hack being in response to Sony's removal of the option to install Linux on the PS3 is BS. People wanted to have more complete ways of accessing unpaid content on the system, and they would have gone about doing it even if they could still run a secondary OS. It's juvenile and fueled by an absurd sense of entitlement that seeks to actively deny the existence of anything remotely like a commodity in the digital world. After all, if it's all just infinitely reproducible ones and zeros, why should there be a cost?
You see, boys and girls, if you had even the most basic economic background (or a hint of common sense and self-awareness), you'd know that there's this thing called "profit motive". The only reason Sony has any reason to make PS3s is because they can make money off of it, and since they don't make a whole lot of money on the system itself, they rely on licensing fees for the games that are available on it. The only reason companies have incentive to make the games that Sony pulls most of its profit off of is because they know that they can still pull a reasonable profit for themselves.
If somebody finds a flaw in the system that makes it trivial to play games or consume content you don't actually own, then the companies that make those games have less incentive to do so, Sony has less incentive to make new systems, and none of us actually get any new content to enjoy on our newly "freed" piece of technology. So, when you go about trying to spread your exploit and the accompanying gospel of economic non-participation as loud and fast as you can instead of making Sony aware of the flaw, they are going to use their entirely legal (if not entirely reasonable) rights to try to not only stop you but to pump you dry in the process.
The response to this is not to say, "Oh, Sony is an evil megacorporation that wants to force us to actually pay to enjoy the material they produce!" and call them names while maliciously attacking their servers with your illegally acquired bot-nets. The response is to go, "Wow, that guy really should have seen that coming" and go on buying or not buying things based on your sense of the reasonableness of their market value.
So, all of you little script kiddies out there, go to hell and get a job. If you think things are too expensive, go without for a change. There are so many cheap ways to consume all of the media you could possibly want that you really have no excuse. If you think that the systems are broken and favor corporations too strongly, get involved in the political process like a goddamn adult.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Why the Wii and DS deserve your respect
I'd like to state right now that I'm not writing this to be an idiot fanboy and declare Nintendo the winner of the current console war. I don't own a Wii of my own for a reason, and it's the same reason I don't own a PS3 or a 360. The software isn't there, and most of the software that would make me buy any of the systems for myself isn't even in the pipeline. I also know that nothing I'm going to say here is revolutionary. It's all stuff that I'm sure has been said before, but I've talked to a number of people lately who still didn't get it, so I'm going to throw it out there for anybody else in that boat.
I am writing this to try and explain some of what makes these two systems so popular with the general public. It's not Nintendo's hype. They've talked about how they're revolutionizing the way people play games, but the people who are important in this discussion haven't heard any of that rhetoric; it's all aimed at jaded gamers who've been screwed for supporting Nintendo two generations in a row now (though much more by the Gamecube than the N64).
What really makes the Wii and the DS so amazing is the same thing that made the mouse amazing. It's the shift from instruction to interaction and the elimination of the whole hurdle of perception that comes with it.
Those of us who are long time gamers may not get this. Playing a game with a controller is the most natural thing in the world. Yet, to a computer enthusiast, so is manipulating Linux through the command shell. To the uninitiated, both are incredibly esoteric and don't do anything to ease you into the process. There are very few people who start playing console games as adults for this very reason. As children, we're more open to ideas that don't make logical sense, so learning to manipulate a distant character through arcane series of button presses isn't as hard to cope with. To somebody who has lived sufficiently long though, the concept begins to grow ridiculous.
Nintendo is changing this. Much as the mouse (and, thus, the Graphical Operating System) opened the world of computing to the masses by creating a more intuitive sense of navigation through physical motion and interacting with data, the WiiMote and the DS's stylus based controls allow gamers interact with a game in a way that makes logical sense. If I tap the bubble, it pops, if I swing my arm, my character swings his bat. It's a direct correspondence of motion that has been missing in the past and that has left the unexposed scratching their heads in confusion.
This is a trend that should have been noticed years ago, as this sense of intuition is the exact same reason that DDR and other Bemani style games were such a cross over success all around the world. When you eliminate the curve of learning how to play a game instead of just playing it well, you open up its appeal to a market that traditional games can't even imagine.
This is why the Wii will continue to sell well, and will probably dominate the console sales market, much as the DS has (in Japan, the number of DS's is about to surpass the number of Playstation 2's, an incredible feat considering the market saturation and age of that old juggernaut). Despite these strong console sales, though, Nintendo won't post the profit numbers of either Microsoft of Sony, because their hardware to software sales ratio won't look at all similar once the two traditional game makers big war horses come out to play in the coming years. The type of people who buy just a Wii aren't going to buy all of the games that we consider "good". Whereas 90% of 360 owners will buy Halo 3, I'm willing to bet that only somewhere around 40% of Wii's will be accompanied by copies of Metroid Prime: Corruption, maybe less. It's all in the demographics.
The shift is important, though, as the Wii's hardware sales, and the sale of it's casual and "non" games, will be staggering, and it will make other companies take note. As time goes on, the system will become refined, and video games will become truly main stream. Temporarily flagship genres such as the RPG will fade back into cultdom as the video game console is brought into the open and multiplayer gaming makes a shift back from the internet back to the living room (with online elements still in tact, I'm sure), the entire demographic of gaming will shift.
I'm certainly not proclaiming the death of traditional videogames. There are some experiences, especially the more cinematic ones, that benefit little from a truly interactive control style. The biggest system sellers of this generation, and more than likely the next, will remain in the style to which we are accustomed. But the winds have begun to blow, and those of us interested in the industry, seriously or casually, need to be prepared.
I am writing this to try and explain some of what makes these two systems so popular with the general public. It's not Nintendo's hype. They've talked about how they're revolutionizing the way people play games, but the people who are important in this discussion haven't heard any of that rhetoric; it's all aimed at jaded gamers who've been screwed for supporting Nintendo two generations in a row now (though much more by the Gamecube than the N64).
What really makes the Wii and the DS so amazing is the same thing that made the mouse amazing. It's the shift from instruction to interaction and the elimination of the whole hurdle of perception that comes with it.
Those of us who are long time gamers may not get this. Playing a game with a controller is the most natural thing in the world. Yet, to a computer enthusiast, so is manipulating Linux through the command shell. To the uninitiated, both are incredibly esoteric and don't do anything to ease you into the process. There are very few people who start playing console games as adults for this very reason. As children, we're more open to ideas that don't make logical sense, so learning to manipulate a distant character through arcane series of button presses isn't as hard to cope with. To somebody who has lived sufficiently long though, the concept begins to grow ridiculous.
Nintendo is changing this. Much as the mouse (and, thus, the Graphical Operating System) opened the world of computing to the masses by creating a more intuitive sense of navigation through physical motion and interacting with data, the WiiMote and the DS's stylus based controls allow gamers interact with a game in a way that makes logical sense. If I tap the bubble, it pops, if I swing my arm, my character swings his bat. It's a direct correspondence of motion that has been missing in the past and that has left the unexposed scratching their heads in confusion.
This is a trend that should have been noticed years ago, as this sense of intuition is the exact same reason that DDR and other Bemani style games were such a cross over success all around the world. When you eliminate the curve of learning how to play a game instead of just playing it well, you open up its appeal to a market that traditional games can't even imagine.
This is why the Wii will continue to sell well, and will probably dominate the console sales market, much as the DS has (in Japan, the number of DS's is about to surpass the number of Playstation 2's, an incredible feat considering the market saturation and age of that old juggernaut). Despite these strong console sales, though, Nintendo won't post the profit numbers of either Microsoft of Sony, because their hardware to software sales ratio won't look at all similar once the two traditional game makers big war horses come out to play in the coming years. The type of people who buy just a Wii aren't going to buy all of the games that we consider "good". Whereas 90% of 360 owners will buy Halo 3, I'm willing to bet that only somewhere around 40% of Wii's will be accompanied by copies of Metroid Prime: Corruption, maybe less. It's all in the demographics.
The shift is important, though, as the Wii's hardware sales, and the sale of it's casual and "non" games, will be staggering, and it will make other companies take note. As time goes on, the system will become refined, and video games will become truly main stream. Temporarily flagship genres such as the RPG will fade back into cultdom as the video game console is brought into the open and multiplayer gaming makes a shift back from the internet back to the living room (with online elements still in tact, I'm sure), the entire demographic of gaming will shift.
I'm certainly not proclaiming the death of traditional videogames. There are some experiences, especially the more cinematic ones, that benefit little from a truly interactive control style. The biggest system sellers of this generation, and more than likely the next, will remain in the style to which we are accustomed. But the winds have begun to blow, and those of us interested in the industry, seriously or casually, need to be prepared.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)