8th February 2007, 7:08 AM
So far there's no keyboard or mice that work on it (not mine anyway) as far as i've heard.
I really think that Nintendo patent for the voice to to text thing will replace the need for keyboards on Wii. Unless it's just going to be used in a particular game. The patent certainly made it look like it was being used for chat though, and if you think about it a light, bluetooth earclip would be be something even grandpa could use. That grandpa that never learned to type, because he grew up being taught that typing is a woman's skill.
Yup.. Blizzard can take pre-existing windows based freeware for IM or chatrooms and quickly throw something together in a small team, even a one person outfit and build on it over time and releases. Nintendo (or whoever ends up building the tools) has to start with square one and it has to be silky smooth. You wouldn't want krappy programing slowing down your online match just because you tried to type something, you want it fully integrated and fast. What happens when you take pre-existing program and try to throw it on another platform? MSN IM for Mac, which eats about 30% of cpu. For an IM program :D
It'll take time, it'll take money. Months of R&D and a major update to the wii operating system. If you want something that runs off software and is available for that particular game it came packaged with, well, that just seems like a waste. Why would the dev spend that time and money to offer chat and lobbies on a platform with free online play and no sign on fee? Again, they cant just throw pre-existing freeware on it and patch any bugs it may have later.
I really think that Nintendo patent for the voice to to text thing will replace the need for keyboards on Wii. Unless it's just going to be used in a particular game. The patent certainly made it look like it was being used for chat though, and if you think about it a light, bluetooth earclip would be be something even grandpa could use. That grandpa that never learned to type, because he grew up being taught that typing is a woman's skill.
Quote:Wait a minuite... so you're saying that consoles doing the same things PCs are doing have higher costs?
Yup.. Blizzard can take pre-existing windows based freeware for IM or chatrooms and quickly throw something together in a small team, even a one person outfit and build on it over time and releases. Nintendo (or whoever ends up building the tools) has to start with square one and it has to be silky smooth. You wouldn't want krappy programing slowing down your online match just because you tried to type something, you want it fully integrated and fast. What happens when you take pre-existing program and try to throw it on another platform? MSN IM for Mac, which eats about 30% of cpu. For an IM program :D
It'll take time, it'll take money. Months of R&D and a major update to the wii operating system. If you want something that runs off software and is available for that particular game it came packaged with, well, that just seems like a waste. Why would the dev spend that time and money to offer chat and lobbies on a platform with free online play and no sign on fee? Again, they cant just throw pre-existing freeware on it and patch any bugs it may have later.