Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How Motion Video Games Work

By Janet Gaye Walker


Motion video games are becoming increasingly popular with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii and the Kinect for the Xbox 360. However, there are many questions as to how these video games work and how exactly it can tell what movements you are doing.

There is no perfect games console and this is definitely the case for those that use motion sensors. Some are not able to pick up the smallest of movements and some are placed in the wrong place to be able to get the movement just right. Motion sensors are used to be able to an electric response that is sent through the game.

There have been two types of motions sensors proven popular over the years. However, these are definitely not for motion video games. These are Infrared waves and sound waves. Infrared is still very popular with home burglar alarms and works by working of the heat, which is generated by everything in a room. A movement will disturb the heat patterns, which sets off a signal to the product that uses the sensor. Sound waves are popular with automatic doors. These waves are designed to continually let off the waves and then wait for a disturbance. Once the waves bounce back in a way that it is unexpected, then device moves.

Video games use a completely different style of motion sensor. This new technology is called an accelerometer and is a computer chip which is placed within the controller of the device - whether a Wii remote or the Kinect. The chip is able to consider all movement and then convert it into the movement on the screen. There are still problems with this technology because it is still unable to consider the smallest of movements.

Originally, the accelerometer was designed for the military and not for kinect for the xbox360. They were created to help with the control of missiles so that they could be guided remotely. When they were first invented, these computer chips cost thousands and were very large. They were scaled down for the use in kinect xbox360 games and are now much more affordable.




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