Things round here have been a bit Wii-cerntric of late, unfortunately this is mostly due to the fact that there’s a lot of rumours going around about various games, developers and online game releases, but not too much news. So apologies for that.
Today’s story possibly illustrates this, posted by Major Nelson (head honcho of Xbox Live) in his Xbox themed blog, is a link to a dissection of the Wii-mote by the New York Times.
What makes this dissection stand out from the fan based ones is the fact that the NYT goes into detail about the technology involved. Overall it makes for some pretty interesting reading. The most interesting bit is about exactly how the motion sensing works:
But the controller’s most-talked-about feature is the capacity to track its own relative motion. This enables players to do things like steer a car by twisting the remote in the air or moving a game character by tilting the remote down or up.
“This represents a fabulous example of the consumerization of MEMS,” the tiny devices known as micro-electro-mechanical systems, said Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS unit at STMicroelectronics, a leading maker of the accelerometers embedded in the controllers. (Nintendo itself declined to talk about the controllers’ inner workings.)
He said the motion sensors, using the technology that activates vehicle air bags, can accurately sense three axes of acceleration: up and down, left to right, and forward and backward.
This is mostly achieved within the MEMS, micron-size machines that depend on submicroscopic structures carved into the silicon. For example, one structure moves like a tiny diving board, stimulated by the actions of the game players.
The structures are enveloped in an electrical field, Mr. Vigna said. When the MEMS elements are moved, the electrical field changes and the MEMS chip is sensitive enough to detect the changes.
These accelerometers are so sensitive, Mr. Vigna said, because electrons — those subatomic particles that whirl around the nucleus of atoms like a video game in the making — can sense the subtle atomic-level movement of the silicon structures.
So there you have it. That’s how the Wii-mote works. Check the above link for a nice graphic of a disassembled Wii-mote.
