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Tech This Out

One of the memories that stands out from my family’s trip to Disney World 10 years ago is an Aladdin ride we went on. Between the glasses we wore, which were more like miniature TV screens, and the moving seats, it actually felt like we were flying over Africa on a magic carpet. I’m sure it was revolutionary at the time. But lately, virtual-reality experiences like that one are becoming commonplace in the video game industry.

The Wii has been around for four years now, but it was only the beginning of the latest movement in video games – one that makes games more realistic not just with improved graphics, but by getting the player more physically involved in the game. This fall, both Sony and Microsoft will finally follow in Nintendo’s footsteps.

On September 19, Sony will release Playstation Move, a new controller set for its Playstation 3 console, and what amounts to its own version of the Wii. Instead of using purely motion sensors to track the controller’s movement, Sony uses a camera to track a glowing orb on one end of the controller, making it more accurate than the Wii. And because it uses a camera, the PS3 will now support video chatting, supposedly with up to six people at once.

Microsoft’s new product, Kinect (to be released November 4), goes even further. Like Playstation Move, it uses a camera to detect motion, but a camera is all Kinect uses. For the first time in video gaming, you are the controller. With its advanced camera array (there are actually three of them), Microsoft’s technology can track 48 human skeletal points, down to the finger. So whatever you do in real life, your character does in the game, and there is no need for plastic hand-held controllers. Kinect also includes face- and voice-recognition software, so you can control the console with verbal commands as well. And, like Playstation Move, it includes video chat.

All this sounds very nice for gamers. But in truth, these advancements seem to be just the latest in a startling trend, one that blurs the line between the real and the virtual. Devices like the HTC Hero and the iPad do this by drawing our eyes onto a computer screen for increasing amounts of time. But in these cases, at least we can look up from the screen. In video games today, at least we can put the controller down. Video games should be a distraction from the stresses of the real world, a simple means of entertainment. They should never be an alternative to the real world.

Will we ever get to that sci-fi scenario where actual lives hang in the balance in video games? No, probably not. But, like most questions about technology, the answer depends on the user, and on the user’s perspective. As long as we keep in mind the fact that games, as tangible as they may seem, are not real, my generation should be able to avoid becoming the hopeless couch-potato bunch that many adults fear we already are.

Virtual-reality, after all, is an oxymoron, isn’t it?