Nintendo and AiLive have unveiled the development kit behind Wiimote motion capture for gameplay. While the news is a bit inside baseball it is pretty fascinating how easy Nintendo is making it to program games for that use their Wiimote's special functions.

AiLive LiveMove essentially lets you capture Wiimote motions in real-time and instantly attatch them to a function in your game.

"In early 2006, I challenged Dr. Wei Yen and his AI scientists to develop AIware for the Wii Remote. When Nintendo's development teams saw LiveMove, we instantly recognized how it would greatly increase our ability to explore and experiment with new concepts and make our lives easier," says Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director/General Manager of Integrated Research & Development Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd. "This revolutionary tool liberates the imaginations of game creators. We are more than happy to share this collaborative LiveMove tool with independent Wii software developers all over the world. From a cowboy's lasso to a samurai's sword or a chef's cooking utensils, we just can't wait to play the developers' new, 'unexpected' applications."

One of the examples the website offers is for a team making a zombie cowboy game. Instead of forcing a programmer to waste all of their time programming and testing out different motions on the Wiimote for gameplay, some non-programming creative lump can sit in his or her office swinging the controller about until he finds the moves he likes. Then it's just a matter of ringing up programmers and saying "All done," apparently the kit does the capture and most of the heavy lifting.

It's genius that Nintendo recognized the importance of streamlining development for the more unusual aspects of the Wii. It will get that many more developers to think about creating games for their console using the special features. And, according to the release, the kit costs only $2,500 per seat. Cheap! Brian Crecente

AiLive

Instead of complicated programming, developers need only take a few
minutes to train the Wii Remote by examples. LiveMove lets developers focus
directly on creative work without the burden of onerous coding requirements,
helping them quickly unleash the potential of Wii(TM). The only limitation is
the game creator's imagination.
"The Wii coupled with AiLive LiveMove will usher in a new era of natural
game control," commented AiLive Chairman Dr. Wei Yen. "Powered by AiLive's
patented Context Learning, LiveMove will allow the game industry to move away
from indirect digital control to more natural analog control for the first
time."
"In early 2006, I challenged Dr. Wei Yen and his AI scientists to develop
AIware for the Wii Remote. When Nintendo's development teams saw LiveMove, we
instantly recognized how it would greatly increase our ability to explore and
experiment with new concepts and make our lives easier," says Genyo Takeda,
Senior Managing Director/General Manager of Integrated Research & Development
Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd. "This revolutionary tool liberates the
imaginations of game creators. We are more than happy to share this
collaborative LiveMove tool with independent Wii software developers all over
the world. From a cowboy's lasso to a samurai's sword or a chef's cooking
utensils, we just can't wait to play the developers' new, 'unexpected'
applications."
LiveMove is currently available exclusively to Wii developers and priced
at a mass-adoption license fee of $2,500 per seat. Tutorials and demos will
be offered by AiLive. For detailed information about LiveMove, visit AiLive's
website at www.AiLive.net.