MTV loves the Vision camera a bit too much
MTV’s Stephen Totilo thinks he has a “million-dollar idea”.
He believes that your Xbox Live Vision Camera-enabled Xbox 360 should snap a picture every time you unlock an Achievement. It’s a cute idea, akin to the snapshots that amusement parks take of you on a roller-coaster; a moment of surprising excitement captured for posterity.
It’s also one of those concepts that sounds great… in theory.
Sure, getting certain Achievements might be thrilling, provoking a Sports Illustrated-type action shot of a gamer couch-jumping like Tom Cruise; making this idea sound like a lot of fun.
Then there are the other Achievements, like creating an online schedule in NBA 2K7. I think that’s actually a worthwhile Achievement, because it’s helping to create an effective online community, but let’s face it - it’s not exactly spine-tingling fun, either; and certainly not worth a picture. Especially when you’re scheduling in your skivvies.
I have a completely full Xbox Live Friends list, packed to the gills with top-quality gamers and industry types; good people all - but I don’t really care to see what they looked like when they completed the tutorial in Gears of War. Besides, they probably looked a lot like me - sitting on the couch with a slightly bored look, waiting for the real game to start. I’m not convinced that’s worth transferring the bandwidth.
After all, I’ve earned hundreds of Achievements, and my Gamerscore isn’t even all that high because I rarely have time to finish a game. 95% of those hundreds of would-be photos would look essentially the same, though some might have one of my dogs walking in front of the camera to mix things up.
Anyway, while it’s not the least valuable idea I’ve ever heard; to my mind, unless you’re either a exhibitionist or narcissist (or both), it’s more than a few shekels shy of a million.
on February 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I agree that the idea sounds good “in theory”, but that it wouldn’t work out that well. Maybe if it showed you the picture it snapped and then gave you the choice if you wanted to keep it or not. Maybe that picture can be the achievement pic instead of the one that normally comes with it.
My view, though, is that any new use for the camera is a good thing. Right now it is way underused. I really hope that we can get to the point where every create-a-player mode uses face mapping. My online persona in Rainbow Six is cool to see and it feels good that no other character out there looks like mine.
I definitely would like to see a lot more games take advantage of having a Vision so that more people are compelled to buy it. Maybe MS could pack one in with every premium Xbox from now on. Something has to be done to increase interest. Without enough cameras out there, what’s the motivation to spend money to develop games or parts of games for it? Without any content, what’s the motivation to buy one? Someone needs to provide the chicken or the egg.
I just see a lot of potential in the camera and I don’t want to see it thrown away.
on March 27th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
[…] MTV’s Stephen Totilo, whose self-described “million-dollar idea” was to have the Xbox Vision Camera snap a picture of your boxer-wearing self on your couch every time you land an Achievement, has turned his genius to fixing the Wii’s Draconian system of “Friend Codes”. The random 16-digit string which serves to identify your Wii from everyone else’s is an idea straight out of the ENIAC days of the 1940’s. So Totilo’s modernized the concept - with an idea straight out the 1980’s. Using the internet to find a site that translates phone numbers into pseudo-text, Totilo decided that his thusly considered Wii Friend Code of ELF-ON-OX-7-YIP-06 was much easier to use. Right… I’m not trying to pick on they guy, and I don’t know what he makes, but MTV - I’ll take half of it for the same job. 867-5309… FIVE-THREE-OH-NINNNNNNE!!! […]
on September 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
[…] Over at the 5WG website, blogger Shawn Drotar made it clear that my idea had some flaws: After all, I’ve earned hundreds of Achievements, and my Gamerscore isn’t even all that high because I rarely have time to finish a game. 95% of those hundreds of would-be photos would look essentially the same, though some might have one of my dogs walking in front of the camera to mix things up. […]