The latest from the "Wii 2"/Project Cafe rumor mill: the controllers for Nintendo's upcoming 2012 console will actually let you feel surfaces within the game. According to Swedish gaming site Loading.se, the system will use haptic feedback to simulate the last frontier of gaming: tactility. Peep the translated excerpt:
Haptic technology is a form of tactile feedback used to simulate the experience of touching different objects shown on screen. The player can move their fingertips across a surface and clearly feel the difference between soft, smooth or rugged textures. Electronic companies across the world have been conducting research in this field for years. It’s been rumored that Apple is close to patenting a similar technology, and we’ve seen the Toshiba demonstration of ‘New Sensation UI Solution’, that applies a thin film over a screen in order to achieve a haptic effect. In Nintendo’s case, this is a natural progression of both the Nintendo DS touch screen and the Wii technology....
According to our source the work for the new console has been going on for a few years, and throughout this whole time the goal has been to create an as direct and easy-to-understand concept as the Wii....
You have to try Nintendo Feel to really understand. But the idea itself is very easy to sell, no matter if you are aiming for hardcore players or the wider audience that was first introduced to games through DS, Wii or Kinect....
At the same time, Nintendo Feel is an experience that doesn't want to explain itself in words, but rather tell the player through his hands. Which is probably why Nintendo will bring playable demos to E3, even though the finished console won't be available until 2012.
At this point, we have no idea what to think. But if this was able to be implemented with anything close to accuracy, then...well, we're in the future. [via Game Informer]
