Newsbrief: Version 4.1 of the popular Unity game engine was released Thursday which, among other enhancements, it introduces multiscreen AirPlay support.
AirPlay is Apple's protocol for allowing the streaming of audio and video from one of its devices to another. With this update, Unity games running on iOS 4.3 or later can be displayed on a receiver device such as Apple TV, while a user's iOS device is used as the game's controller.
More information on Unity 4.1's features available in its release notes.
Just another move in a series of events leading iOS games to the living room, and extending Apple's play for apps and games in the TV space.
With Google and Android meandering into the living room on Smart TVs and all TVs alike (via devices such as Ouya), the battle for the connected TV marketplace continues.
Touch input is better than console controllers for many things. Including things that weren't yet properly figured out on touch. Console input is past it's potential for a long while already.
No. Not until touch has some kind of resistance on it. Virtual D Pads are the worst because your thumbs slide out of position. The last thing you want is to look down and see what you are pressing.
I like controllers because I can feel the buttons. I know where my thumbs and fingers are because I can feel is position on the button and its placement relative to other buttons.
I cringe even thinking about learning to play UMvC3 or DmC on a virtual pad
I agree on sticks and buttons. But there are many other ways to make actions on touch platform that are very nice and sometimes even better than controllers. We strive a lot for it here, prototyping and testing input concepts.
The actual problem is still movement, as it's such a important mechanic in action games, and still we couldn't find any really good solution in that sense for games that need you right hand dedicated to actions and everything else.
A very simple setup of one left stick and four right buttons, maybe plus left and right shoulder buttons would be perfect to work with. Actually just the left stick would do wonders. We haven't got hands on Fling or FlyFish joysticks yet to have an impression on it's precision for movement.
Love the updates - all of 'em. With Unity Pro, it's the first time I feel I'm getting my money's worth with any similarly priced software - every time I feel that Unity is seriously lacking a feature that is wasting my time or increasing development risk, bam! There is a new update, and it solves almost all of my problems - Those guys at Unity seem to be employing a bunch of mutant mind-readers!
the only thing that i'm concerned with is the latency issue. i've played many games using an iphone 4s, AppleTV and AirPort Express N on an LCD TV.. so it's about as current / high speed as possible. 100% apple other than the TV.
You cannot stream games that well. Try playing "The Walking Dead" Telltale game on a TV. it's simply too much for the hardware... i've played a few other games also like Pinball, world of goo and others.
some games will be ok, but i think most people will expect realtime response and i'm not seeing that.. it can be as much as a .5 sec delay from touch to screen feedback.
Brassmonkey and some other tech don't have a problem because they are not projecting video and audio along with input controls. AirPlay is sending all of this..
this could become very big indeed!
With Google and Android meandering into the living room on Smart TVs and all TVs alike (via devices such as Ouya), the battle for the connected TV marketplace continues.
I like controllers because I can feel the buttons. I know where my thumbs and fingers are because I can feel is position on the button and its placement relative to other buttons.
I cringe even thinking about learning to play UMvC3 or DmC on a virtual pad
The actual problem is still movement, as it's such a important mechanic in action games, and still we couldn't find any really good solution in that sense for games that need you right hand dedicated to actions and everything else.
A very simple setup of one left stick and four right buttons, maybe plus left and right shoulder buttons would be perfect to work with. Actually just the left stick would do wonders. We haven't got hands on Fling or FlyFish joysticks yet to have an impression on it's precision for movement.
You cannot stream games that well. Try playing "The Walking Dead" Telltale game on a TV. it's simply too much for the hardware... i've played a few other games also like Pinball, world of goo and others.
some games will be ok, but i think most people will expect realtime response and i'm not seeing that.. it can be as much as a .5 sec delay from touch to screen feedback.
Brassmonkey and some other tech don't have a problem because they are not projecting video and audio along with input controls. AirPlay is sending all of this..