I've also just bought my dream car. Well, more correctly, my '80's dream car. Without giving my age away to all but the brightest one percent of PALGN's readership, I was only seventeen when my new (25 year-old) car rolled off the assembly line in Japan. It's a 1984 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Nissan 300ZX, in minty fresh condition looking like it just drove off the showroom floor. The best thing of all was I stumbled across the coupe by accident while I was in a car yard looking for practical cars for my expanding family (my baby daughter just turned ten weeks yesterday). Even more remarkable, when I drove it home to show my wife, she didn't make me take it back! All of which has you scratching your heads and asking what all that has to do with the price of Dual Shock 3 controllers in Shanghai, China? Stay with me, I'm almost there. Back in May, The Wrap #20 asked the question: Can playing Forza 2 or Gran Turismo 5: Prologue influence your car buying habits, and if so, how exactly do video racing games affect our brand preferences? Turned out it was all a bit 'chicken and the egg'. Here in my case, I've bought a car I already loved, and will now boot up Gran Turismo 4, to see how the virtual drive compares.
Which brings me - via that smooth-as-butter segue that encompassed E3, Christmas, Reindeer Poo, NBA Play-offs, '80's motoring icons and a baby - to today's news.
Over at Carelton University (the very same Canadian Uni involved in the aforementioned videogaming motoring brand awareness study) the boffins from Carelton Uni's School of information technology have come up with what they modestly believe to be the best thing since the Wii. Sensor Networks for Active Play (SNAP) is a series of sensors that are worn on a videogame player's arms and legs, and track the player's exact position and movements.
Its creators, led by Anthony Whitehead, a Carleton University professor, are touting it as a way of putting an end to Wii cheats. Apparently (and this was news to The Wrap) there's a group of Canadian Wii-owning lazy slackers relaxing on the couch when they are supposed to be exercising. Instead of doing squats or star jumps they are lying on their backs just waving the Wiimote lazily in the air, all the while eating donuts and not even looking at the telly.
A gamer himself, Professor Whitehead waited months for a Nintendo Wii only to be disappointed.
"It's fun for about a month, then people start to cheat and just sit on the couch and flick their wrist," he said.
Together with a team of undergraduate students, Hannah Johnston, Nick Crampton, Kaitlyn Fox and Joe Tuen, he spent 18 months developing SNAP.
Personally, I've got a few problems with all of this. The Canwest News Service report describes the 'new invention' to its Canadian readers, saying, "Think of it like strapping Nintendo's popular Wii-mote controllers to each arm and leg. As your real arms and legs move, so do the limbs of your virtual character on screen."
First up, I'm hoping the scientists have created something a little more sophisticated and original than the Wiimote. I imagine, the Canadian patent office does too. While I'm crossing my fingers that it gets put into production, it does have to be noted that Canada is the very same country that claims to have invented Five-Pin Bowling. Seriously. Canada. You didn't invent anything. You took Ten-Pin bowling, and took away five of the pins. That's not 'inventing', that's 'tinkering around the edges'. I'll give you points for the maths, but that's not an original invention.
Canada's proudest invention?
Secondly, what kind of person is playing a Wii fitness title and not actually exercising? I have no trouble imagining people too lazy or unmotivated to fire up the console and complete the fitness routine, but seriously; too lazy to do the routine, but not smart enough just to figure that if they don't want to do it they can just switch off the console and watch Canadian Idol instead? Carelton University needs to come up with a way of making the general population smarter, not fitter. Either that or find a way of permanently attaching the sensors to people and zapping them every time they stop moving.
To their credit, SNAP's inventors have already garnered some attention for their invention, recently winning an international competition put on by IndieCade, a global organization that supports independent videogame development, and in a few days time SNAP takes centre stage, or at the very least a small booth in the corner at the E3 Expo. Professor Whitehead is hoping E3 will be a launching pad for the device.
"We're really hoping to get this into the hands of someone who can do more with it," he said. "It would be nice if someone saw the value of the technology and what we have done."
The Wrap says good luck. I might not share the Professor's enthusiasm for SNAP, but I am excited about E3.
It really is better than Christmas. Sure we know what some of the presents are already; we peeked, or we guessed or you already told us. Sure there will be a few presents that we didn't really want - the digital equivalent of a box of hankies. But there will also be a few that we didn't know we were getting or hadn't even thought of asking for. Genuine surprises that will blow us way.
Even better there will be no Boxing Day Blues. Once the E3 Expo has closed its doors, once the big 3 have revealed all their secrets, and the publishers have whipped us into a frenzy with their titles under development, we can settle back and look forward to the presents - the soon to be released games - arriving in the months and years ahead.
I'm off to lay down some virtual rubber in a 1983 Nissan Fairlady Z 300ZX (Z31) before jumping in my 1984 model and driving down to the local car wash.
Enjoy E3.
Until next weekend, that's The Wrap.
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