Nintendo Wii LiveMove Tool Announced
October 13, 2006
Developing for Nintendo Wii just got a whole lot easier. Nintendo and AiLive have teamed up to create LiveMove, an Artificial Intelligence product that teaches the Wii controller to learn with simple gestures. The product will be available immediately and the mass-adoption license fee is $2,500 per seat.
“The Wii coupled with AiLive LiveMove will usher in a new era of natural game control,” commented AiLive Chairman Dr. Wei Yen. “Powered by AiLive’s patented Context Learning, LiveMove will allow the game industry to move away from indirect digital control to more natural analog control for the first time.”
“In early 2006, I challenged Dr. Wei Yen and his AI scientists to develop AIware for the Wii Remote. When Nintendo’s development teams saw LiveMove, we instantly recognized how it would greatly increase our ability to explore and experiment with new concepts and make our lives easier,” says Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director/General Manager of Integrated Research & Development Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd. “This revolutionary tool liberates the imaginations of game creators. We are more than happy to share this collaborative LiveMove tool with independent Wii software developers all over the world. From a cowboy’s lasso to a samurai’s sword or a chef’s cooking utensils, we just can’t wait to play the developers’ new, ‘unexpected’ applications.”
Source: AiLive
PlayStation 3 Oblivion Shaders Are Benefiting
October 13, 2006
Finally, at long last, Oblivion is coming to PlayStation 3. And according to Executive Producer Todd Howard, “the PS3 is benefiting” from the port. In a recent interview, Howard spoke about Bethesda’s desire to keep things consistent with the Xbox 360 and PC version.
“Our goal is always to make the game look and feel consistent across all platforms. We design the game we want to make and then make that game available on as many platforms as possible. So, it’s the same base game as was released on PC/ 360.”
However, PlayStation 3 is going to wind up with some extra perks after all.
“The PS3 is benefiting from us continuing to develop our core technology that drives all our Elder Scrolls games. Some of that is noticeable on the screen — like all the new graphic shaders — and some isn’t. The best examples are those new shaders we have for how “near detail” and “far detail” blend together on the landscape. You no longer have a harsh line cutting across the two levels, they blend together seamlessly and the distant detail and land looks much nicer.”
Source: IGN
Wii Health Pack For Fitter Gamers?
October 12, 2006
Nintendo Wii goes health crazy
With the newly announced “Health Pack”, Nintendo Wii just may be the next cornerstone of a nutritious breakfast. This Wii concept was recently announced at the Nintendo Conference Japan, but no further information was given. It’s believed that this will be related in some way to the Japanese title Family Health Check.
And speaking of health, Nintendo DS will be getting a cooking guide titled DS Menu Collection which will contain over 1,000 built in recipes. And we assume that they’ll be some nutritious recipes in the bunch and not simply instructions on how to make a chili pie. Not that there’s anything wrong with chili pie, mind you. The Big N is so dedicated to the concept of cooking with DS that they will be offering a magnet stand for 1200 yen. That way, you can pop your DS on your fridge while you cook away.
Other interesting tidbits from the event: Around 60 Virtual Console games will be released by the end of 2006, including PCE and MD, Zelda: Twilight Princess for Gamecube will be sold online only in Japan, and starting next spring, “Wii Compact Software” will be sold, which we assume means downloadable titles.
Source: NeoGAF