Head tracking coming to a commercial Wii game

February 22nd, 2008, 07:16 Posted By: bah

Ok, so anyone who is a regular here at DCEmu has probably read one (or more) of my off-topic rants about how much I love the idea of incorporating head tracking into games.

For the rest of you: Head tracking is a way of letting the wii know where your head is relative to the TV. Knowing this allows the game to show a view of the game that takes into account the angle you are looking at the TV from, and to change how the game looks if you move around to a different angle.

Since seeing the head tracking video (embedded below) a while back I just couldn't comprehend how something this cool was not being attempted by commercial game developers, after all the Wii is all about promoting new ways of interacting with games. It seemed like such a great way to bring something new to games relatively easily and would perfectly fit in with the 'get up and play' style of games the wii is great at.
You want to see around that tree? Just move to the side a little.

Well Game Developers Conference 08 brings news that the game Boom Blox (the 'Stephen Speilberg game'), will incorporate some form of head tracking, although it will be presented as more of an 'easter egg' than a selling-point feature.
It will be used (obviously) to allow the gamer to control the camera by moving their head. Now while that may not sound like a big deal, the increased 3d effect it allows the screen to display (as seen in the demo video) is extremely exciting.

If it's 1/10th as impressive as the original Head tracking demo by Johnny Chung Lee then I can really see it generating a buzz that could influence more developers to see what can be done to enhance gameplay.

After all, the only thing a user needs apart from 2 Wii-motes is a couple of cheap IR LEDs that can be attached to glasses or on a headband etc, which could be mass produced for next to nothing.

The original head tracking demo by Johnny Lee:



A preview of the Boom Blox game:


Original Article (Joystiq).

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