14 DAY TRIAL // There's a lot of speculation going around related to what Nintendo is preparing to do as a response to Microsoft introducing its own motion tracking Project Natal and Sony releasing the wand for the PlayStation 3.
The logical move would be to counter with a more powerful Wii console, which has HD capabilities like the other two home consoles. But Shigeru Miyamoto, one of the most important game designers at Nintendo, is not sure that the future is HD for the company.
Speaking to Popular Mechanics, he revealed that Nintendo had not made a decision on how future hardware would look but that “What I can say is that, my guess is that because we found this interface to be so interesting, I think it would be likely that we would try to make that same functionality perhaps more compact and perhaps even more cost-efficient.”
The game designer says that even the Wii can pick up tasks not handled via the PC, with Nintendo offering a TV Guide channel in Japan, which is easier to use than the information available on paper or on the PC. Such initiatives could be expanded to the point where all the information an individual needs could be delivered through a Nintendo device using motion to select pieces of content and to filter news.
Miyamoto also believes that motion tracking needs to move to the mainstream rather than remain the ghetto of gaming. He stated that “Originally video-game systems were viewed as a toy, and they were something you played with. Whereas now, I think we're starting to see a blurring of the lines, where, obviously, the internal guts of a video-game system is essentially a computer, and we're gradually seeing video games moving beyond simply entertainment into other aspects of everyday life.”