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In the wake of E3 and its high-profile unveilings of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3, arguments have raged over whose console stole whose feature, and which system maker is really the most innovative. Wouldn't it be nice to know for sure?
Perhaps there's a way to find out.
The BBC is reporting that Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University has created a website designed to answer just such questions.
The Game Innovation Database (GIDb) will be a Wikipedia-style resource for games, hardware/services, and innovations. Currently the site has accumulated over 400 entries, including "First use of in-game research" (Armada 2525, 1991) and "First Game with Cooperative Play" (Fire Truck, 1978).
Professor Jesse Schell of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center, a member of the team behind the idea for GIDb, explained it's importance:
"We have created the Game Innovation Database in order to create a historical record of which innovations appeared when, and why they are important... So many videogame innovations have occurred so fast that there is a danger that many fascinating and important innovations will be forgotten."
The site will serve as a great trivia tool to answer burning questions such as which game was first to employ a sunlight sensor (answer: Boktai, 2003) or attach a microphone to a controller (Famicom, 1983). Perhaps more importantly than settling gamer disputes, the GIDb provides an ongoing reference, allowing game designers to look back on what their predecessors have created.
The GIDb is currently looking for gamers to contribute material, as well as for those interested in game development to apply to the editorial board.
-Taking a short break from playing Moon Patrol at his local arcade, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes
May 20 2006, 12:12:38 UTC 5 years ago
Pretty nice
It's just getting started from the looks of it.Wiki format.
The GTA games are very incomplete, that's how I know it's just getting started.
Uh oh.... "sources".
I hope sources for this are a little more open.
It alread includes Little Computer People. Very wise. :)
No Life & Death I or II. Hmph!
Very nice, yes, very nice indeed.
nightwng2000
May 20 2006, 12:53:32 UTC 5 years ago
May 20 2006, 13:38:47 UTC 5 years ago
May 20 2006, 23:42:30 UTC 5 years ago
May 20 2006, 14:30:55 UTC 5 years ago
May 20 2006, 16:11:43 UTC 5 years ago
It's good but still needs a lot of work
I like it and am looking forward to where it will be heading and how helpfull it will be but...Looking over some of the stuff it doesn't date that far back.
Clicking on "First Use of Sticky Grenades in an FPS" takes you to a description of the Plasma grenades in Halo, Sure it has them the only problem is Goldeneye was the first game to use Sticky bombs (sure it's not the EXACT same thing but it's in the same ballpark) and that pre-dates Halo by a few years (I think Timesplitters even uses sticky bombs/grenades).
but as I said I am looking forward to it and hope it continues to grow and expand like Wikipedia, cause it would be nice to have a big database of video game information to just referance.
May 20 2006, 18:57:43 UTC 5 years ago
Re: It's good but still needs a lot of work
actually, I think it was Perfect Dark instead of Goldeneye that has the stickies. But it's been ages since I played Goldeneye, I can't really remember. I know for sure that Perfect Dark utilizes sticky bombs.5 years ago
5 years ago
May 21 2006, 00:57:02 UTC 5 years ago
Re: It's good but still needs a lot of work
i believe they were called mines in the game. Proxy, det, and timed mines if i recall correctly...the shortened version since thats what i remember.I think Perfect Dark had it, but then again, it wasnt popular no matter how awesome it was or how it is the true successor to Goldeneye (seeing as they are both from the same company)
May 20 2006, 18:07:50 UTC 5 years ago
May 21 2006, 00:59:06 UTC 5 years ago
May 21 2006, 02:09:01 UTC 5 years ago
nintendo copies too
The Star Wars Saga Edition Lightsaber Battle Game came out last year(and there were others like it before that) and the Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle Pro came out in 2002.There were plenty of motion and tilt sensing controllers way before Nintendo did it. Remember when VR was the hot thing years back. That era brought plenty of this stuff. It just didn’t get very mainstream.
And honestly the ps3 remote is way closer to the Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle Pro then the Wii remote anyway.
That’s one think that has annoyed e a bit going though that website. The vast majority of records are completely wrong and you could tell the writer didn’t know what they were talking about. Like saying the Zelda was the first game allow the Use of Free Exploration. That is ridiculous, adventure for the Atari 2600 just about any MUD.
The website will take a long time to get good info because right now it is just full of people who can only think of the big uber popular titles and are giving them credit for everything.
May 21 2006, 03:44:48 UTC 5 years ago
Re: nintendo copies too
I don't doubt that motion sensor related games or systems existed previously. But I'm just talking strictly between the Wii and PS3 controllers.May 21 2006, 05:32:19 UTC 5 years ago
Tee hee.
It's going to be a long time before that site starts having anything that could be considered credible.
May 20 2006, 18:50:53 UTC 5 years ago
Arguments like this is why I hate to be called a 'gamer' and refuse to refer to myself as one.
May 20 2006, 23:48:06 UTC 5 years ago
May 21 2006, 01:01:05 UTC 5 years ago
And i feel ya, but everyone whines about anything that doesnt seem right...
May 21 2006, 04:18:37 UTC 5 years ago
Basically Sony dissed the entire idea and just unviels a tilt motion controller the Warhawk developers admit they only had ten days to implement it? It's Sony's attitude that gets people enflamed.
Sony also said they had to scrape the rumble since it interefered with the tilt sensor. Which is garbage since the wiimote has rumble and several periperhals with a tilt sensor have had rumble in them as well. Sony doesn't want to admit they lost the patent fight over rumble tech they stole. Heck the company they stole the tech from has said they will offer Sony the solution to have rumble in the PS3 controller Sony just has to pay 90$ million dollars.
Nintendo's innovations with the wiimote is how many different things the wiimote makes natural. It isn't a light gun get it through your head. It doesn't light at it works with projection tvs light guns don't work with them. Also Nintendo is considered the innovater since they have often perfected what an earlier company did and made it mandatory.
If Nintendo hadn't come out with rumble modern game controller wouldn't have it. Same with self correcting analog sticks.
Zelda is considered one of the best early free roaming games since when you defeated the game it wasn't the true game. Basically Nintendo expanded upon things.
Nintendo does have a lot of credits in innovation.
Prior to the wiimote controllers with a tilt were considered highly unrealiable. Watch the Sony E3 press conferance video the guy almost rips his arms off playing with it. It's not very natural to play with on that shape controller.
The wiimote on the other hand can replicate a flight stick or a racing wheel very easily and the buttons can easily be grapped without fouling up the gameplay unlike the PS3 controller.
May 21 2006, 04:26:58 UTC 5 years ago
"Microsoft and Sony have borrowed Nintendo's ideas - from the invention of the D-Pad to the Rumble Pak - in the past. The veteran executive demonstrated Nintendo's paranoid fear that competitors might similarly try to steal Revolution's technology and cited this as a primary reason why the company has yet to reveal all about the machine. "One of the reasons we're not giving a lot of details about the design of the new console prior to its release is that there's no way we're going to let that happen again." -Perrin Kaplan (D.I.C.E 2006)
This link is to an interview by the Nintendo head of the UK branch, http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=10
“Historically we’re always developing new things. We know Sony have had a lot of issues with their rumble feature and they’ve had to withdraw it – because they didn’t innovate, they copied. With Nintendo, I’m trying to think of anything we’ve copied... but I can’t.”
As any historian can tell you the proper credit for an innovation can often be given to the person or company that perfected it rather then the first one to come up with the concept. Penicillian for instance the guy who discovered it didn't do a thing with it. It was up to others to come up with the antibiotic from it.
The inventor of the horseless carriage last I heard isn't known. One guy has a patent but others actually built the thing. Ford didn't invent he mainstreamed the production.
Mind you some improvements to existing innovations are so revolutionary they should be considered the inventor rather then an improver.
May 20 2006, 19:13:23 UTC 5 years ago
May 20 2006, 19:27:48 UTC 5 years ago
CMU is very well regarded. Will Wright mentioned to me a couple of years back at E3 that he was super-impressed with the program as well as the quality of the student interns Maxis had in from CMU.
Good luck there...
5 years ago
May 21 2006, 03:23:40 UTC 5 years ago
What I'm going to do
I'm gong to wait a month or two, until I'm in summer holiday and that place is upadated a bit.then I'm going in armed with the truth to tear it a lot of new ones
May 21 2006, 06:44:57 UTC 5 years ago
I hope Nintendo can prove me wrong, but Wii looks like suicide.
As for the arguments and claims of copying... well... sounds to me like another "Decline of Video Gaming" flash needs to be created.
May 21 2006, 12:29:33 UTC 5 years ago
To me Wii looks like solid gold....
5 years ago
May 22 2006, 15:41:29 UTC 5 years ago
A lot of problems with the site, but perhaps it will get better.
May 22 2006, 17:21:28 UTC 5 years ago
Not very useful
Unless they do a better job researching. I'm pretty sure the original Civilization had research, and came out before 1991. And I'm also sure there was something else even earlier than that..