Hasta La Gadget!

Star Trek: The Next Generation may be coming to your living rooms soon courtesy of some hot new Blu-ray pressing, but one of the most compelling pieces of the technology shown on that series still remains elusive: the holodeck. Don’t get down, sunshine, because we might soon be making our first, tentative steps into a virtual courtesy of Project Holodeck. It’s underway at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts as well as the Viterbi School of Engineering and starts out with a pair of Project Oculus glasses. These glasses, which were shown off at E3 by none other than John Carmack, cram a 1,280 x 800 display into a pair of glasses that present a wide, truly immersive field of view. Pair that with a PlayStation Move for head tracking and a Razer Hydra controller and you have the beginnings of a proper virtual reality environment.

An early concept of what the complete system might feel like can be found after the break, a couple of people acting out a sequence from Skies of Arcadia, which could be called a spiritual inspiration for the first game designed for Project Holodeck: Wild Skies. In it, two people “pilot a massive airship through a exotic world of floating islands” — though whether they look as kawaii as their Dreamcast predecessors remains to be seen. When you might actually get your hands on the system is also unknown, but one piece of the puzzle, the Oculus Rift glasses, are said to be hitting Kickstarter any day now — for an anticipated price of just $500. Bat’leth and copy of Workin’ out with Worf not included.

Continue reading Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to kickstart every gamers’ VR dream for $500 (video)

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Project Holodeck and Oculus Rift hope to kickstart every gamers’ VR dream for $500 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you didn’t think Nintendo hit it out of the park at E3, that isn’t Nintendo’s fault. It’s yours. Such was the message in a recent Kotaku interview with the man at the top of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, who called gamers “insatiable.” He feels that no matter what, they won’t be pleased. He was responding to the criticism the company faced at the big trade show earlier this month.

Fils-Aime was quoted as saying, “One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles tremendously about not only our fanbase but the gaming community at large is that, whenever you show information, the perspective is: ‘Thank you, but I want more. Thank you, but give me more.’ … “For years this community has been asking, ‘Where’s Pikmin? Where’s Pikmin? Where’s Pikmin?’ We give them Pikmin. And then they say: ‘What else?’ For years this community has said: ‘Dammit Reggie, when you launch, you better launch with a Mario game’. So we launch with a Mario game, and they say, ‘So, what’s more?’”

What could be the most exciting part of the Wii U – Nintendo’s new online Miiverse network – was only briefly touched on. We know that the new Mario game will sell millions of Wii U units, but so did Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros Wii. Those weren’t the problem with the Wii. It was attracting the hardcore gamer and getting decent third-party content that caused problems.

[via Kotaku]

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime blames you for being unimpressed at E3 is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
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