Controllers Will Differentiate Games, Not Graphics
By Chris on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Games Industry, Hardware, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony
In a market where the home console with the least graphical horsepower is the most dominant, Wild Tangent CEO Alex St. John believes that we’ve reached a point where input controllers — the Wiimote, guitars, etc. — are what will continue to differentiate games.
“Of the three consoles in the market, the only one that’s profitable is the one that used an old graphics chip and off the shelf components and instead differentiated by an input device,” he said at a conference recently.
“So what you see is that the role for retailers and for the Wii and for next generation games is new types of input devices define the experience.”
While I agree for the most part, I wouldn’t discount the market for a game on a traditional controller.
Kathy Vrabeck of EA Casual agreed, but believes that the Wii’s success can be attributed to the approachability of the system.
“Historically, when you would see a teenaged boy with a PS2, or Xbox 360, or the original Xbox – that was their machine, and other people, whether it was parents or younger brothers and sisters, would walk by and see ‘That’s too hard for me’ or ‘That’s content that’s either inappropriate or too hard or too mature for me.’”
“What we’ve seen with the Wii is that it’s the same guys initially bringing it into the household and being the guys who ask for it for holiday. But once it’s in the house, you talk to any Mom who is in that house, or little kid, and they’ve played Wii Bowling and they did all the Wii Sports and now all of the sudden it is a console that is also for them.”
I really don’t know why carry on about the Wii, it’s a piece junk and the controllers are rubbish. It’s a system that is for 12yr kids and mum’s using Wii fit.
IMHO, I have the Wii, and it’s a great amount of fun. Definitely something for family/friends to enjoy. Nintendo has been all for the family/party games, they’ve never had a hardcore fan base.
“While I agree for the most part, I wouldn’t discount the market for a game on a traditional controller.”
I don’t think he’s discounting the traditional games market, nor even traditional (old school) controllers. I think he just realizes that gamers have advanced beyond the overly complex controls as a means to “advance” games and have come back to what initially made gaming go mainstream in the 80s: Simply Fun games. Sure, there will always be complex games that require dozens of button combinations, but the days where gaming is dominated by a few hardcore teens who want dozens of shooters/gta clones every year are wearing thin.
I’m fine with that. The space marine/drug lord fantasies of 14 year old boys were getting a bit tiresome to be honest. I’m long since no longer a teen and my imagination doesn’t dwell solely on blowing things/people up anymore.
I find a game like Lost Winds far more imaginative and rewarding than a dozen FPS’s that are nearly impossible to tell apart even for someone who used to play a lot of shooters.
The nice part is, Sony and MS don’t seem to be going anywhere soon, and they’re clearing targeting the teenage-male-hardcore-I-have-hours-a-day-to-play-games market, so everyone can be happy.