She thinks that with the development of science and technology, somatosensory games are getting better and better. In the past few years, the great adventure of fitness ring has to be equipped with an extra ring. The latest game just uses the handle that comes with the machine, which is much more convenient. I know there are many problems, but for a person who is not skilled in using a smart phone, she is willing to accept somatosensory games and can compare which one is more convenient by herself. It is good enough to do this.
Perhaps the success of Wii and Switch will make people think that the somatosensory device is nothing more than adding a detection device to the handle, and new products can be made soon by powerful modern technology. Isn’t this something that the company’s top management can do with a slap in the face?
However, the reality is that the pioneers who explored somatosensory games before this time, no matter which one seemed to be whimsical ideas at that time, went through every step from putting forward ideas to optimizing design until the final production landed.
Today, I will take Power Gloves and EyeToy as examples to show you how these ancient somatosensory game devices have changed from advanced ideas to goods placed in the window for people to buy, and what development stories are behind them that are difficult for ordinary consumers to reach.
Let’s start with the Power Glove, that is, PowerGlove. It is the first mass-produced device to detect the gesture operation of players. Although it is not light as a game peripheral, it is even a bit as heavy as an astronaut’s equipment, but it provides players with a brand-new way of interaction. One of the selling points of this product at that time was that it didn’t need an external keyboard or joystick, and it could control the game only by this glove, and it could also project the player’s hand into the game in real time.
Its development story has to start from 1981. That year, Thomas Zimmerman had just graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He studied wind power generation technology at the university, but he had some trouble finding a job.
Because fossil energy was basically used at that time, although wind power generation was a future development direction in the energy field, this technology was not used on a large scale at that time, but it was unable to display the knowledge. So zimmermann stayed in a research institute for a period of time, and then ran home to study his other hobby-electronic music.
When he was still at school, zimmermann and his classmates dreamed of forming a virtual band. Just zimmermann doesn’t need to go to work now, so he decided to take this time to realize his dream:
Isn’t it cool if you play an air guitar and then you can hear the corresponding sound from the stereo?
He designed such a device that uses light as a medium to detect the bending degree of fingers. Then block other light to prevent the external environment from interfering with the detection process.
Following this idea, zimmermann used his own gardening gloves and materials of about 10 dollars to complete the prototype of power gloves: each finger of the glove has a hollow tube, one end of which is connected with a light emitting diode, and the other end is connected with a light sensor. When the pipe is distorted, the sensor will receive less light than usual, so that it can detect the bending degree of the finger.
After the hardware is ready, zimmermann also wrote some software that can process and analyze these optical signals.
One of the software can make the program write down the corresponding notes by changing the bending degree of the fingers when wearing gloves, and you can write a good song only by moving your hands. There is another one that should be invented for the hearing impaired. By interpreting the user’s gestures and then converting them into words, people who don’t know sign language can also communicate with users.
However, the functions realized by these programs are monotonous, which is far from reaching zimmermann’s ideal product form. In order to realize more functions, zimmermann enrolled himself in a programming course. While learning new knowledge, zimmermann didn’t forget to register a patent for his product, which became a stepping stone to his success in the future.
In his program class group, there was a person who happened to be the wife of Steve Mayer, the co-founder of Atari. Under her recommendation, zimmermann met Mayer.
At that time, Mayer was just promoting a new laboratory in Atari, focusing on the future development direction of electronic entertainment, including the field of electronic music, which was exactly what zimmermann wanted. Soon after, zimmermann officially entered the research room in Sunnyvale, California.
After entering Atari, zimmermann showed his patent to the company’s top management. Atari was very interested in this technology and offered to buy this patent for $10,000. However, a friend of zimmermann did not recommend him to sell the patent after hearing this, and said: "The potential of this thing is definitely more than $10,000. Don’t sell it to them." Finally, zimmermann listened to his friend’s advice and kept his patent.
Facts have proved that keeping patents is the right choice.
Shortly after zimmermann joined the company, the Atari crash occurred in 1983, and the company had to cut down many departments, including his research office. Zimmermann returned to the unemployed life and didn’t know how to realize his dream. Fortunately, he met Jaron Lanier at an electronic concert soon. Like zimmermann, Lanier is a former Atari employee who lost his job because of the crash, and now he just needs this patented technology.
Lanier was working on a visual programming language for amateurs, which used images and sounds to present various codes. However, ordinary equipment can’t display much image data, and after using zimmermann’s gloves, you can not only move the code by hand, but also write the code by gesture, which is a perfect match.
They hit it off and set up a company called "VPL Research Room", and hired professional engineers and programmers to improve the gloves themselves and supporting software.
Engineers added an ultrasonic detector to the original glove, which can identify the movement of the glove in three dimensions, and named it "Z glove", which was inspired by zimmermann’s full name Thomas Zimmerman.
Later, VPL Laboratories switched to optical fiber to detect the bending of fingers, and used magnetic sensors to track the movement trajectory. The improved gloves were called "Data Glove". Although it has achieved better performance, the cost of gloves has been alarmingly high at this time, and it is basically impossible to realize civilian use. Fortunately, many big customers are very interested in data gloves.
These big customers come from all walks of life. For example, NASA hopes to use data gloves to let them interact in the virtual world, or use data gloves to control robots in the real world. Buyers in the medical field hope to study the patient’s hand trembling phenomenon with the help of data gloves. Although data gloves are expensive, their products are really worth the price.
VPL Lab has made great strides in scientific research, but in 1987, an entertainment company called Abrams/Gentile Entertainment (hereinafter referred to as AGE) visited them, hoping to develop a game peripheral with their technology.
At that time, AGE was conceiving a game system. With the help of special TV and head-mounted devices, players could personally enter the all-3D world. However, they don’t want to configure the handle for this system, because it will make the player’s experience split and think that he is not completely in the game world. Therefore, AGE went to the VPL laboratory, hoping to build a brand-new control device based on data gloves.
VPL generously provided patent authorization and design documents for gloves, perhaps because they saw that the game industry was coming out of the shadow of the collapse of Atari at that time, and the market ushered in new vitality, which was a good opportunity for investment. And don’t forget that the two founders of VPL research lab have also been in the game circle, and they are also the center of the big crash.
Although the idea of this all-3D game system is very good, AGE finally gave up planning. The reason is very simple. At that time, Nintendo was the only giant in the North American game market. Using new game hardware to fight against Nintendo was tantamount to throwing eggs at stones. However, the patent authorization of the data glove has been obtained. AGE thinks that regardless of the planning, this glove has great potential, so it is too wasteful to keep it. It is better to make good use of it and make a glove peripheral separately.
At the same time, after the senior management of AGE realized how powerful Nintendo was, many things were lightened:
At that moment, I thought if we couldn’t beat Nintendo, let’s join them.
In this way, AGE decided to develop glove peripherals for Nintendo’s NES.
After deciding the goal, AGE needed to find a sponsor for the peripherals, so they found Mattel in October 1988. In fact, Mattel is not so interested in what AGE brings. After all, they once produced a game console called Intellivision, which resulted in a loss of 394 million US dollars and the company almost went bankrupt.
However, people in Mattel’s market development department thought this product was very cool. Finally, with their support, Mattel decided to cooperate with AGE to launch this peripheral and named it Power Gloves.
Now that the sponsor has been found, there are only two problems to be solved: one is to obtain Nintendo certification, and the other is to reduce the total cost of peripherals.
The process of obtaining Nintendo certification for Power Gloves is not easy. Many people inside Nintendo think that this peripheral only increases the learning cost of users, and its installation and use are too complicated for children. Mattel and AGE insist that this is a revolutionary product, and the launch of this product is beneficial to both parties.
After many talks between the representatives of the two parties, Nintendo finally agreed to certify the Power Gloves, but asked Mattel to provide additional easy-to-understand instructions in the products.
On the other hand, the development process of power gloves is not so easy, and it can be said that the development site is simply hell.
The decision-makers of the project hope that the products can be sold as soon as possible, preferably in the Christmas period of 1989. That is to say, the project engineers only have five months to turn the 9,000-dollar data glove into a cheap game peripheral that everyone can afford, and at the same time, they have to prepare the game to be sold with the peripheral.
In order to reduce the production cost as much as possible, engineers switch to various lower-cost technologies on the premise of ensuring the availability of basic functions. Five months later, they handed in a fairly good answer sheet. The price of power gloves was $80, but the production cost was only $23. Mattel had ample profit margin.
In terms of game lineup, Mattel chose to go two ways at the same time because he was in a hurry.
First of all, buy a completed game, and then use these five months to let developers optimize the control mode of power gloves. At the same time, contact game producers who are still thinking about new works and ask them to develop a game tailored for power gloves.
Secondly, ensure that power gloves can be used in other NES games, even if the exclusive games are insufficient, they are attractive enough for ordinary players.
In October, 1989, Power Gloves was officially launched. With cool ideas, it quickly became the most popular gift at that time. Especially in some areas, because players are too enthusiastic about power gloves, many people are willing to buy them at a higher price, and gloves were once fired to $139.
In just six weeks, Mattel has sold more than 650,000 sets of power gloves, but this craze did not last long. Players soon found that power gloves were not as cool as they thought.
After all, it is a hardware with advanced concept, and if there is a lack of games specially designed for it, it will not be able to exert its greatest power. It was not until a year later that the exclusive game "Super Glove Ball" of Power Gloves was officially released, and in the same month, Power Gloves was discontinued.
In the absence of exclusive games, the performance of power gloves in ordinary games is also very poor. After all, engineers only have five months to prepare. Power gloves are very difficult to use in many NES games, and it is difficult to achieve fast and accurate operation, which is fatal to a peripheral.
In a certain issue of The Angry Video Game Nerd, james the Spray God said that after using the power glove, he couldn’t even pass the first level of "Shuangjielong", so he might as well use the controller on the power glove directly. What’s the point of the existence of this peripheral?
Power glove is an imperfect product, which shows players a brilliant future, but because of insufficient preparation, the door to the future is only opened for a while and then hastily closed.
However, not all early somatosensory game devices are as full of regrets as power gloves, and the story of EyeToy is much more complete than power gloves.
Why not add a camera to the game machine? I don’t know what you thought when you first met the PS2. Do you think the appearance of this machine is really scientific and technological, or is it a home host with unlimited possibilities? When Richard Marks saw the PS2, the first thought came to him: Wouldn’t it be cool to add a camera to the PS2?
It was this idea that supported him and made him design EyeToy, a popular product for PS2.
At that time, Max was a Ph.D. in Avionics at Stanford University. His job was to make some special cameras for the underwater exploration robots in the Montreal Aquarium.
In 1998, as a technical consultant, Max attended the Game Developers Conference in San Jose. He originally just wanted to come here for fun and take his energy away from his work tasks. But it was here that he saw the introduction of the PS2, and then he began to think about adding a camera to this game machine.
Although Max knew nothing about the game peripherals, he wrote down his thoughts and sent the letter to Sony. Soon after, Max received a phone call from Sony, hoping that he could visit the company and promised to arrange a job for him at Sony.
In this way, Max joined the paradise in the minds of countless engineers-Sony R&D Department.
Max’s R&D department is located in Foster City, where he works with 25 other colleagues. However, to Max’s surprise, his colleagues neither developed hardware nor games, but were responsible for writing the system-level code of PS2 to help other Sony departments develop games better. The most successful product of their R&D department is a program that can make assembly language run more smoothly on PS2.
Now that we’re here, we can’t quit, so Max, like other colleagues, fiddles with the system code of PS2 every day. However, during his time in charge of the software project, Max did not give up his idea.
He bought a webcam, relayed by a computer, and tried to transmit the picture to the PS2. After success, he intends to make a game with this set of equipment. This is a simple Game model. Players can push a small ball on the screen by waving their hands. Unfortunately, Max has no experience in game development, and the game he made is very rough in animation and other aspects, so this game he called Brickman was not even allowed to show it to his superiors.
Fortunately, there was no shortage of game materials inside Sony, and Max began to optimize his own game. First, he added a virtual animal to the game. The animal stood on the ball and would tilt or fall to the ground with the movement of the ball. Then, Max added a new function to the game. Players can wave their arms and use magic in the game. The new game is thus completed.
All developers who see this game like this novel experience very much. But when they marveled at the creativity of the game, no one thought that Max’s creativity could eventually become a host peripheral:
What I want to say is that your idea is so great that I would be happy to develop games for it if I could, but as you know, it’s impossible.
Although the scale of video game industry has been very large at the end of last century, it is still a rather conservative industry. The cost of making a game and marketing it can be as high as millions of dollars, not to mention a new game peripheral. And at that time, people still didn’t completely escape the impact of the Atari crash. It was really too difficult to make Max’s idea come true.
However, things are not without turning for the better. Don’t forget that Max got into Sony R&D with the idea of camera, and his boss, Phil Harrison, is actually taking action.
Harrison’s job is to supervise the work of engineers. He knows that Max is making an interesting game peripheral and thinks the idea is very creative. In Harrison’s view, although the game has made rapid progress in terms of screen and UI, the handle of the game console is still a huge threshold for new users to become host players. According to their survey results, children under the age of 13 are usually unable to skillfully use various key combinations of the handle.
It would be much more convenient if you can use your own body instead of a handle with a certain threshold when playing games. Sony is interested in the possibility behind Max’s creativity.
In the autumn of 2000, the PS2 was officially launched in North America, and Harrison was promoted to be the head of the European studio. Two weeks later, he invited Max to London to show his magical camera to 450 game developers in the studio, and this peripheral project was finally finalized.
Within Sony, Max’s project is called iToy, which stands for Interactive Toy. Later, Harrison changed the name of the project to EyeToy. Although many people in the marketing department are not very optimistic about this project, the new name is very popular there.
According to Max’s memory:
When I showed the early version of EyeToy to the marketing staff, I found that what they wanted was not a certain game or hardware, but a brand-new development direction. When the supporting software is half developed, they feel that the demonstration only shows 1% of the project; When the development reached 80%, they felt that the project had only advanced to 2%. I have to tell the people in the marketing department that you have to make up the rest by imagination.
I don’t blame the people in the marketing department for demanding so much. After all, Sony has invested a lot of money in EyeToy, and they feel that EyeToy should have a performance far superior to other games of its generation. Sony did not disclose the specific development cost of EyeToy, only said that compared with the average development cost of each game at that time, the budget allocated to EyeToy was "considerable".
However, this investment has also paid off. In August, 2002, both Harrison and Max thought that EyeToy was ready, so they showed this new PS2 peripheral at Sony Game Show in London. The exhibition is only open for three days, but thousands of players are willing to wait in line during the exhibition, just to experience the wonderful functions of EyeToy.
Harrison recalled the public display still feel a little incredible:
The whole team was directly lined up from one end of the conference center to the other. Not only players, but also fathers, mothers and girlfriends were dragged to the scene to watch the demonstration. This incident has become a very important symbol.
At this time, the PS2 has been on the market for two years, and Sony is looking for new products that can add vitality to the game console and attract mainstream players. EyeToy shows Sony that it has the potential to do the job.
By the end of 2003 alone, EyeToy had sold 400,000 units in the United States and even 2 million units in Europe. At the same time, Sony internally expects that the shipment of EyeToy is expected to reach 4 million units by the end of the fiscal year.
However, in Max’s view, commercial success does not mean that it is time to stop exploring, and even go further and firmly grasp the future:
Tools for developing games for EyeToy can be found on Sony’s website, and now more than 1000 people have downloaded them. This shows that my idea is being adopted by other developers to integrate the functions of EyeToy into future games. We have done a good job in displaying pictures, but there is still room for improvement in capturing players’ voices and actions. I hope that in the future, the game can detect the color of players’ clothes and whether they are smiling, and integrate these into the game. Doesn’t it look cool?
Even this year, if you want to buy a PS2 to relive old games, you can see a PS2 bundled with EyeToy for sale. Maybe in the eyes of some players, they are a perfect match.
Although only two somatosensory game devices are mentioned in this paper, we can also see from the development track of these two products how difficult it is to design a somatosensory device from scratch. Whether it’s putting forward ideas, optimizing design in the medium term, or compromising in production, it’s all for players to enjoy the freshness different from ordinary games when they hand over the products.
Perhaps these explorers have taken some detours in design, but the purpose of continuous exploration in these decades is to make somatosensory games enter thousands of households with the host and become a new choice for ordinary players.
THE POWER GLOVE
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