The controller has a speaker.
Thus it can work as a microphone.
Question is, will it do so?

Not that it will answer the question at hand, but I just wanted to know that GameTrailers.com has a system walkthrough of the Wii console and controller for thoes who are interested.

How does a speaker work as a microphone? Last I checked, they don't exactly function the same way.

Can someone fully explain how calibration of the controller is supposed to be done? The more I read into things, the more confused I become. Apparently I'm not pointing at the TV, and sensor motions are the exact same no matter the size of the TV?

I don't think that anyone will know until they get their hands on a brand new retail Wii to find the answer to that qquestion.

Store? Best Buy? Circuit City? Even boutiques devoted to home theater and all that goes with it are terrible places to compare given that signals are split an ungodly number of ways, settings are way off and the environment doesn't lend itself well to these kinds of things.

I'm talking about things like Sound and Vision and Home Theater mag's experiments. Spectrometers, properly adjusted TVs, etc.. The difference is nil. Again, the only reason HDMI exists is because of Hollywood. Even the much touted move from 8 to 10 bit colorstream in HDMI 1.3 doesn't put it one step beyond component.

Considering that the only difference between component and HDMI is the analog/digital difference that would explain the "drop" in quality.

Ironically enough, 25-50 HDMI cables (the "cheap" non-Monster ones) are just as good as their overpriced brethren. High quality is a non-issue with digital, as it's either signal or not. So, the cables don't matter and neither does their quality. HDMI or not.


Any coverage of the PS3 from CEDIA or other electronics shows say otherwise. This thing is being pushed to consumers as a Blu-Ray player at every place except gaming venues.

BTW, couldn't the calibration be similar to what the DS has? Some positions on the screen you have to point to and then the sensor bar for automatic adjusting/triangulation?

It does not use gyroscopes, it uses an accelerometer, which is an extremely inexpensive piece of hardware.

OK, basically, forget about the TV. It has nothing to do with detecting where you're pointing or anything. The Wii senses where you're pointing the controller entirely through the sensor bar. It doesn't matter where your TV is, to the system the sensor bar is the only thing that sees where you're pointing with the controller. No calibration or anything is needed, it simply checks where you're pointing in relation to the middle of the sensor bar: direction, distance, etc, and then uses that information to check where you're moving the pointer. Think of the sensor bar as functioning like the middle of a TV does to a light gun.

That certainly makes sense. Does this mean that if you strafe the controller while pointing it in the same direction, that the cursor doesn't move on the screen?

Good point. Though it would be cool if it had a mocap sensor aswell. That way you can duck under things and do like blind fire and what not.

Isn't Strafing done with the Nunchuck part of the controller? with the analog stick? Just like how you play an FPS on the PC, the keyboard does the strafing and moving, your mouse just aims and shoots. Similarly, I'd expect the actual Wiimote doing the pointing and shooting while the Nunchuck doing the moving and jumping.

Well, I'm not talking about strafing in FPS's (or actual character movements) at all. But simply, I'm wondering whether strafing the controller will cause the cursor on the screen to move. It seems pretty obvious that strafing will be done with the Nunchuk for FPs's.

If you're pointing at the exact same place relative to the sensor bar, it *shouldn't* move the cursor. So basically, if you point at the sensor bar and move around it, your cursor will stay in the middle of the screen in the game. But it depends on if the game takes into account the position of the controller and such, the accelerometer in it can detect relative movement, and I believe there's something where it triangulates where the controller is in "3d space" between the console and sensor bar, but unless those things are used for the game it probably won't affect your on-screen cursor.

well a few things matter though. if you use component with interlaced display, then there is hardly a difference, but progressive scan makes one.

http://4x86.com/shot1.jpg
http://4x86.com/shot2.jpg

(my camera did a piss-poor job of focusing but there still is a difference). seriously, the projector's screen is something like 57 inches, and the couch is 5ish feet away from it, so you can see small details a lot, even if you're not a hardcore videophile.

edit: huge pictures resized, i keep forgetting that i have a high monitor res

Some news you may not like..

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/132...reordergq6.jpg

Yeah, that was discussed a few pages back. No gamestop outside of Hawaii seems to know anything about it. Seems like Hawaii is going to be a test subject of some kind.

Also, Gamestop lists Component cables on their website as being available. 60 dollars, though. Seems kind of expensive.

Yeah, I'll wait and get them off of E-bay... at least they can't be any more expensive.

So you have to trade in $50 of stuff? That's pretty gay, especially if you don't have anything you're willing to part with.

And seeing how it's EB/GameStop, it's going to take three times the amount of stuff to make it to $50.

Every '06 Sports game and then some.

I don't know how a speaker works as a microphone, but they just can. If you don't own a microphone and you need one in a pinch, plug a pair of headphones into the mic jack, they will work (it doesn't sound good, but it works).

The DS mic isn't used very often, but it is there. If Nintendo can cram it in, I can't imagine them not doing it.

Basically, both a speaker and a microphone are a membrane that can move back and forth, creating pressure differences (which is what soundwaves are). You can plug a microphone into a speaker socket and it'll work (badly). The reason it doesn't work well is cause the membrane of the speaker is too big and the pressure of the soundwaves going in doesn't move it enough to make a significant difference over base noise. And the microphone's membrane is too small and light, which means it can't move enough air to create a proper volume difference.

I sure hope that explanation made sense...

I doubt you would get more than 50 cents per sports game. They are pretty much worthless the second you buy them. They wouldn't work towards the "Sell 3 games and get 10 dollars credit' deal anyways, so it would be a waste.

If it's true, my Gamecube and three games I never play should do the trick good enough. I was planning on getting rid of my Gamecube anyways.

I wonder how much a PS1 would be worth.....or do they even take those anymore?

They don't take PS1 games, so I doubt they would take the systems.

Wait, this deal is for EBGames as well? LAME. I didn't know that.

Oh well, I never buy consoles or handhelds from those places anyway, Best Buy has been surprisingly faithful with my purchases.