Before I start, I bought my Wii at launch, I'm lovin it although I'm still waiting for some more good games to come out.

Anyway, for those who didn't follow Wii news before it came out, Nintendo repeatedly said that the "Revolution" (the Wii) senses where the controller is in 3D space. They said "A computer mouse, only in 3D space" and "Imagine sticking your hand into a virtual box and having your TV understand how it's moving in there." Many questioned how this would work considering you have to lift a mouse to re-centre it- well it couldn't work and doesn't work.

After a couple months and renting a few different games, it definatly can not do this. The controller points, senses accelleration and orientation. At first I wondered how it knew I was blocking in Sports boxing, its because the controller is vertical.

Did anyone else notice this?

PS NOBODY CALL IT A WIIMOTE PLEASE!

it does know where it is in 3d space. yes in boxing that is all it uses, but in other games ive seen it uses more. the controller knows every direction it can be facing and also knows how far away from the console it is. you put all those together you have 3d space. the sensor bar is just a still point so that there is always a spot for it to sync via infrared, if it only used bt then it would matter where you put the console. therefore pointing on the screen would be damn near impossible. in time youll see the remote do much much much more. this is only the beginning.

try baseball yet? u can see the bat moves according to your wiimote.
tennis? backhand with mote = backhand in game, forehand = forehand
golf? swings as hard as you swing (although not completely accurate)
technology is never perfect!

only problem in games i can see is monkey balls, some of the games the wiimote cant play properly, but this could be from my personal gameplay style, other people say its fine.

and also in zelda, no matter which way u swing the remote, it does the same attacks. but this isnt cause of the remote, im pretty sure its due to the game designers of zelda being lazy!

a little off topic but, my theory is that technology will one day advance so far that it'd end up right back where it started - reality! anyone else agree?
of course not all technology, just a theory i've come up with after experiencing the wii.

Two perfect examples of how the Wiimote works in 3D space are:
1) Shield attack in Zelda
2) Using the defibrillator in Trauma Center.

Of course it has 3D space orientation, thats one of the reasons there are accelerometers.

ugh. Yes, the wiimote does work in 3d space. just the launch titles dont fully utilize the capablilites of the wiimote

3D = Width, Length, and Depth

You can move it horizontally, vertically, and forward/backward. Those are all three dimensions, so you lose.

just try the sunglasses tool on the photo editor. moving the remote closer or further away increases/decreases the size of the sunglasses. See 3D

I have to argue, yes, but guys, give him a break. His point of view is different than yours. Thats neither his folt nor urs. ok?

It was an EXAMPLE to explain to people who arent all technical.. it SEEMS like it is. Ya, it knows it through more simple ways then 3D space, big whoop...

It still uses 3 Dimensional positioning tho, and wait till companies grasp its capabilities.

well that feature probably isn't at its fullest yet, remember that those are the first games for the Wii...and you obviously haven't played Wareio Ware:Smooth Moves, in that game you do various motions in 3d and there's a mini game in which you move the wiimote in 3d..yoiu need to get it

Just so you know Wii boxing is indeed not a 3D space game. Everyone knows it bases it stances off of controller orientation.

Now the Wii remote can indeed find itself in 3D space using it's current technology based on simple trig.

It can do this by figuring the distance it sees the two dots apart using that with the pre-set distance of the dots on the sensor bar. Using that it can figure the angle between the two dots at it's point. from there some simple trig will tell it it's possible distance from the bar thus you have the first spacial dimension. (Red Steel has an example of this with it's "zooming" feature)

Then depending upon the angle that it is pointing at in the vertical direction it can then again utilize some simple trig to find its height which is the second dimension.

Finally depending upon how far to the side the wii-remote seems the two dots it can determine it's horizontal position.

There are the three dimensions. The only issue is that to find it's actual position would need alot of processing power and that would significantly slow down the system.

Wow, I realize this was a slightly technical post but most replies show that some don't understand the technology at all but thats ok. I'm an electronics technician so I can't help but think about the new technology behind this console.

Psyichic made a very good contribution so I will reply to that only. In theory that is exactly how it should work but so far, if you read around the internet, many have found that the sensor bar has only been used for pointing and not triangulation. I hope someone can prove this wrong. People thought that a character could strafe by moving the controller slightly to the left or right (without tilting). Do you think the Wii is capable of that?

Heres a popular test. Find a point in the game where you believe it is using triangulation, put tape over the eye of the remote and see it it still works. If it does, its just the accelerometers/gyroscopes and trust me, they can't sense "3d space".

In Sports, going back to the Boxing example, why wouldn't they just use triangulation. Another problem with it is if the remote is vertical the eye can't see the IR diodes in the sensor bar.

Nobody take this post the wrong way, I'm not putting down the Wii or arguing with anyone, I'm just trying to understand this "black magic" for my own interest.

Interesting discussion. I'm a bit a techie myself so I'd like to understand how it works.

Regarding the 3D capabilities of the Wii, I'll let someone else explain that to me. What I would like to comment is that whether or not the Wii is, in fact, technically able to detect the controller's position in 3D space, it's possible to create game play that gives the user this sense of 3D motion.

I know this because this is how it is with WarioWare: Smooth Moves. I think this game makes very good use of the controller's potential. There are various minigames which detect the controller's horizontal movement, vertical movement, circle movements (on the horizontal plane), tilt, etc. Pretty much any motion going up, down, left, right, forwards and backwards is detected.

So whatever the technical implementation is behind it, the "black magic" works. In my opinion, the other games makers could learn a lot from the makers of Smooth Moves.

Ohh, logic. Where have you been all this time.

I <3 Logic.

Hmm why should there be any triangular calculation to determinate location from sensor bar? That has nothing to do with being 3d movement. This is how I think it works Wii configures a new point of origin for remote each time you start a game (or when it is configured to reset the point of origin) so it's not relative to to sensor bar in anyway nor does it has to be only thing needet is point of origin (and Wii to remember that point) and way to track movement in x, y and z.