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More on the "Newton" Xbox 360 Controller

I have had some time to think about the Xbox 360 "Newton" controller and have some additional points share.

I have not seen the "Newton" prototype first hand but rather know of the existence of the project from inside Xbox hardware engineering. It is not just interface experiments. They are developing a product that is going to ship one day. Microsoft is probably not thrilled that I know about the "Jasper", "Opus" and "Valhalla" motherboard projects, the "Orion" Zune and the Xbox accessory "Newton" plus two others that I have not mentioned yet. I have the highest confidence in MTV Multiplayer Blog's reporting since their "unknowable" info matched mine.

Lots of people took issue with the diagram that their source drew in MS Paint so I did an "artist rendering" in my moleskin notebook l of what I think the "Newton" might look like.

The MTV Multiplayer report was sort of a cypher key in explaining what the notes I had on the "Newton" accessory was. I had a peice of the puzzle and MTV's report put it in context and lead to other pieces like Gyration's pattents. A few pieces of information can be put together to reveal something bigger. If you look at bits of shadows of an object that you can't see at different angles you can get a pretty good idea about the shape of something.

I should try to interview the Thompson guy that filed most of the Gyration patents. But he is probably busy counting his piles Wiimote and "Newton" money to talk plus he probably signed an NDA.

If Microsoft moved the Xbox team to a remote island in the Puget Sound, cut off their Internet connections and gave them daily body cavity searches looking for notes and thumb drives that might help them keep the details about the Xbox better under wraps. But there are more than 80,000 people out at Redmond working at Microsoft and more around the world. Looking back there was a ton of information about the Xbox and Xbox 360 that was leaked well before official announcements.

I can't see a whole bunch of full $60 Xbox games outside of Wii ports developed around the "Newton" controller but it sounds perfect for Xbox Live Arcade games. There might be optional support for the "Newton" in full games. Newton is going to be awesome as a light gun. I could see games using normal controller with your left hand to act as the "Nunchuk" or "WASD" arrow configuration and a trigger and D-pad in the opposing hand. Left handed gamers could use the right stick on the Xbox controller instead.

If it was up to me I would add controls like Metroid Prime 3 and Resident Evil 4 Wii as an optional control scheme with the "Newton" in Gears of War 2. I would be all over "Gears of Waggle" and think that motion recognition would be awesome when slicing open a Locust by slicing with the "Newton".

There might be Xbox 360 achievements specific to using a "Newton" with games that support it optionally. Project Gotham Racing 4 had achievements that you can only get by using a racing wheel and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 had an achievement using the vision camera. If there was an achievement for using the "Newton" controller with Gears of War 2 it would sell a bunch of Newtons to hard core gamers. It is slightly evil to necessitate an a purchase of hardware for an achievement. But stranger things have happened.

Note: I am using the Xbox Media remote for a stand in example to get the idea across. This is NOT the "Newton".

The launch of Newton is going to require an Xbox dashboard update to include the necessary drivers. Coincidently they might be releasing a fall dashboard update in late 2008 right about the time that it the "Newton" would come out for the holiday shopping season. Pretty much all major video releases are timed around E3 and the winter holiday shopping rush.

The part about an LED bar with two emitters and a receiver on the controller is necessary if they want to be able to port Wii games to the "Newton" controller, plus the hardware testing job listing mentioned LEDs, batteries, working with a gyroscope and accelerometer for motion recognition. They need to match the Wiimote's functionality point by point if they want to port the Wiimote experience to the 360. Just having tilt sensors like the PS3 is not going to cut the mustard.

I am really excited about the possibility of hobby game developers and technology tinkers getting their hand on the "Newton" and coming up with some really wild innovative games. They are likely to include support and documentation for all the existing Xbox accessories in the XNA Game development tool kit when XNA community games ships this fall.

Microsoft already makes a wireless receiver for PCs so they can use the Xbox 360 wireless controller. We might be able to plug the sensor bar into a PC's USB port and access data to and from the Wireless receiver for PCs. If you thought that tinkers had fun with the Bluetooth interaction with the Wiimote just wait until tinkers get access to the "Newton". Microsoft even wrote a MSDN project about coding Wiimote communication. Community XNA developers would have an outlet for experimentation interaction with the 3d controller. doubt that professional PC developers are going to support the Newton in their games since the number of PC gamers that will have both the "Newton" and the wireless controller receiver. We have no idea what kind of applications people will build this hardware once they get a hold of it. I can't wait to read the MAKE magazine articles written about this controller.

We are not 2d creatures and have developed an ability to process and interact with objects in a 3d space. We don't do a lot of day to day activities just using our thumbs (No, texting does not count). I have never driven a car, fought a fight, or slain a dragon with just us using my thumbs. I am excited about increasing the vocabulary that humans can have when interacting with a computer program like a game. Gamers have always been ready to use new controllers in interacting with games. Light guns, dance pads, fishing controllers, train controllers, guitars, drums, maracas, touch screens, mice and keyboards have all contributed to fun games.

All video games are meant to be fun and I want to more when playing games than twiddling my thumbs.

Jake at April 10, 2008 Games

Comments

Posted by: Comrade Tovya at April 11, 2008 7:52 PM

Posted by: heftymadmonkey at April 13, 2008 6:13 AM

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