Group items tagged

next generation Wii - "motion control, touchscreen, analogue joysticks and an accelerometer," described in a video

Trying to build on the success of the Wii, Nintendo game designer Shgeru Miyamoto talks about new directions for his company's games, the next console, 3D and competition from smartphones and mobile games

abstract: "This paper examines video game sales by platform in the North American market from a period spanning 2006 through 2011. As the home video game industry has rapidly matured and become established as a forefront facet of interactive entertainment in the home, we seek to determine what aspects of the video game market seem to most impact sales. This question is particularly poignant as the maturation of the video game industry has witnessed efforts at both vertical integration and horizontal expansion on the part of the top game publishers and developers in hopes of solidly grounding the industry. This study employs a Kruskal-Wallis test to compare eight different gaming platforms. The results indicate Nintendo's Wii and DS are the top selling game platforms, Xbox 360 is in a second tier, multiple Sony PlayStation platforms are in the third tier, personal computer games are in tier four, and the retired sixth generation Nintendo GameCube is the lowest sales tier."

Abstract: "Reality-based interfaces bring new design opportunities to social games. These novel game interfaces, exemplified by Wii, Kinect, and Smart phones, leverage players' existing physics, bodily, environmental, and social skills. Moreover, they enable a shared hybrid physical-digital space in which the players' co-presence can be enhanced by their physical and digital co-location. However, many digital social games occupy players' attention with the digital display and content, reducing their attention spent on one another and limiting the synchronization of actions and emotions among players. How do we design technologies that do not interfere with social play but enhance and innovate it? In this thesis work, I focus on one particular kind of reality-based interfaces, Handheld Augmented Reality (HAR), to extend players' interaction from the small mobile devices to the shared hybrid space around a computationally trackable surface. This thesis explores how to encourage social play with HAR interfaces, which brings in challenges of designing with the affordances and constraints of the HAR interface, understanding the complicated phenomenon of social play, and integrating these understandings in multiplayer HAR game design. Adopting Research-through Design as the overarching research method, I collaborate with multiple teams, design and study three multiplayer HAR game prototypes. I present four main contributions. First, this work yields design artifacts and examples of social games with HAR interfaces. I communicate to the game design and Augmented Reality communities through these prototypes, including BragFish, ARt of Defense, and NerdHerder. Second, I provide empirical findings on social play in a shared hybrid space. Through lab-based user studies, observation, video analysis, interviews, and surveys, I collect and analyze interpersonal play behaviors and emotions in the shared hybrid space enabled by the HAR interface. Third, I adopt and adapt sociologic

"In November, Nintendo will release Wii U, the first update to the groundbreaking motion-controlled gaming console that took the industry by storm in 2006. Pundits and developers presume Sony and Microsoft will quickly follow suit with their own updated game consoles - also the first in years - though neither have confirmed it."

Shadowboxer, potential challenger to the Wii Fit

"When Nintendo announced last week that it would soon start offering the majority of its retail 3DS and Wii U games as digital downloads, it represented a major change in policy for the company. But buried in the announcement was what could possibly be an even more significant change in Nintendo's relationship with brick and mortar retailers."

Abstract: "Combiform is a novel digital gaming console featuring four combinable handheld controllers. It is a new and unique tangible gaming interface that stresses the importance of co-located, co-attentive social interactions among players. In particular, multiple players may freely combine and lock together their handheld game controllers, thereby creating a very flexible collective and transformable tangible interface. Combiform emphasizes social interaction through controller-to-controller contact. The platform and its 10 games introduce novel, tangible and physical co-attentive experiences that are not found in traditional co-located gaming platforms using mimetic interfaces (e.g. Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect). The project is the first game console especially designed for a new emerging digital game genre - Communal Casual Game. The new game genre captures a perspective of integrating classical folk game design approach with digital elements"