[ChildOfChaos]

Very unlikely we will see it from Nintendo, Nintendo have lacked innovation for ages, they just sell cutesy games to kids. They cornered the 'disney' market, don't expect them to do anything great from a tech perspective

[CoolGuySteve]

You're talking about the company that over the past 15 years introduced consoles with motion controls, touch screens, autostereoscopic 3D, proximity-based data sharing, wireless HDMI streaming, and seamless docking support?

That one? That company lacks innovation?

[desiarnezjr]

Their biggest achievement is that they made all those things so cheap and accessible. It really reinforces that newer, innovative or edgier tech (ie: Kinect) isn't always the right approach.

[elliekelly]

I would imagine the Switch gyro controller must be pretty close to the tech needed to make VR games?

[meheleventyone]

https://www.nintendo.com/products/detail/labo-vr-kit/

In a similar vein to phone based VR that we’ve had since Google Cardboard. Modern headsets fuse gyro, accelerometer and camera feature tracking together to stably track the position of the headset and hands/controllers.

[ddragon]

In my experience with a rift s, even though the oculus touch also has gyroscopes and accelerometers, they only help for a few seconds at most when the controllers leave the camera. Those sensors are just not accurate enough (I know little about the details of the sensors, but accelerometers are tracking the second derivative of the position, so any small error will accumulate fast when you want the latter), and you don't want to have your hand all over the place when you're trying to interact with things in VR, which is why, at least for now, you need to measure position directly for it to work, such as the camera/LED devices that are most popular with VR headsets and controllers (and even stuff like the PS Move controller).

[tekknik]

Play Splatoon 2, they nailed motion controls. Every time I read people saying they’re not accurate enough I get confused.

[ddragon]

I mean, I had a vita and the gyroscope control was more accurate than the stick for shooters but that's because I'll naturally adjust if it overshoots (if I go to above I'll immediately push slightly down in a feedback loop - so here what really matters is the precision, not accuracy and in fact I can even adjust the sensitivity to my preference). That feedback loop with the user doesn't work well in VR, if my hand overshoots I don't have means of resetting the position (I can only compensate, but it's extremely uncomfortable when you feel your hand in position x, look at it and it's at position y and that x-y mapping will keep changing over time - and of course it's even worse with your head PoV not matching your head movements). Of course there are lots of issues as well, how do you get the perfect initial position? After all gyroscope/accelerometers only measure movement, it can't know where it starts (for example for jogging you need a gps to get a measurement of position, just like you need a camera/laser sensor for current VR). For gyroscope in traditional gaming you usually use the stick to adjust a solid start position, which is not possible in VR as well unless you force the user to stay in a perfect pose at the start of every level after inputting arms length and height as an example, which would definitely be annoying quickly if you need to reset frequently).

And finally, you example (splatoon 2) only needs to compute 2 degrees of freedom in movement (rotation left-right - or yawing, rotation down-up - or pitching, since rolling isn't relevant with a dot target), while VR systems depend on 6 degrees of freedom (yawing, pitching, rolling, elevating, strafing and surging - all of these for at least 3 devices at the same time: your head, left hand and right hand). Unfortunately controls in VR are quite complicated, and accelerometers, gyroscopes (and magnetometers which are also used in VR systems to know the reference to the floor) are simply insufficient (but necessary since the positional sensors can't keep track all time with occasional occlusion, such as having one hand passing over the other or leaving the tracking area), which is why the same sensors on the switch are used in every VR headset and controls in addition with even more sensors and algorithms.

EDIT: the camera system also helps a lot with defining gaming boundaries in the room and being able to quickly see if I accidentally leave it, I already punched my monitor once and that's with a barrier that always get visible when I approach something in my room.

[tekknik]

Way too long to respond to all of it so I’ll just do some highlights. I covered resetting center again. This is a problem for all gyro controllers, not just VR. Splatoon 2 does this great.

Adding 3 additional axises change nothing. Nintendo didn’t do it because it’s very niche to require that. It costs pennie’s more to get a 6DOF gyro vs a 3DOF. The question is the need. Do you need to rotate the yaw of your hand? Nope.

So my statements stand. The VR folks seem to be on a “we’re more superior than thou” kick with gyro controls.

[ddragon]

>6DOF gyro

A gyroscope is used to detect orientation/angular velocity (spinning), the sensor to add the other degrees of freedom is already there in most modern controllers and smartphones (the accelerometer). The issue is still accuracy I'm afraid.

>Do you need to rotate the yaw of your hand? Nope.

I'd certainly enjoy to open doors and make a simple goodbye gesture in VR.

[charcircuit]

You are confusing precision with accuracy

[tekknik]

No I’m not. You do not need ”pixel” perfect accuracy, or precision. Play the game and find out. This is why I’m confused as to why people think even in an FPS the gyro controls need to be accurate enough to perform surgery.

They also complained about discomfort when resetting center on the gyro control. Something else Splatoon 2 nailed gracefully.