This is a follow-up to an old thread discussing game mechanics, and I went on a bit of a tirade on future technology. I have a wii now, and something reminded me of this, so I thought I would re-highlight a couple things, where I was right and wrong. This might be of no interest to anyone, but its a good diversion from me trying to summarize the democratic debates.
The email dates from 03/11/05. ~8 months before the launch of the Xbox 360, 6 months before the unveiling of the wii-mote, and a year and a half before the launch of the PS3/Wii. The cell processor had just been announced and was largely speculative. It did not entirely live up to the initial speculation, but the vertical processing capabilities has been proven in the Folding@home application for the PS3. Sony has made more mistakes in the last two years than I would have ever guessed, and in part sunk their chances by making a lot of Sega’s mistakes at the end of the 90′s console wars, and by royally trying to fuck their customers over in many non-game related segments of their business.
(related: http://www.thebestpageintheuniv
In the initial thread, I use Pac-man as an example of excellent design, and why the next-generation of home consumer technology that _truly_ changes the living room will likely come from a game company:
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Next time you walk by a pizza-place or a laundromat that has it in there try it, its only a quarter. Its as good as it ever was. It wasnt the first map game, or the last, but for what it was, it was the best. Play it, you already know how it plays. If you could go 50 years without ever seeing, hearing, or thinking of it again, you would still know how to play it, and it would be the same experience: fast interesting, a couple minutes of entertainment, and interesting enough that you might try it again.
Anyone can play it, and anyone can be good at it, even people with only one leg and a foot that can grip the joystick.
Now go buy a new name brand universal remote, and ask yourself why turning on your fucking TV-set is less enjoyable, yet more challenging, expensive, and time consuming than playing Ms. Pac-man.
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With the obvious exception of the Wii, the current consoles kept the exact same controllers, but stripped them down a bit. Sony made the same mistake as Sega did with the Saturn in putting in the balance into the controls as a last minute catch-up to what someone else was doing (sega made a lame “3d” controller to match sony’s analog controls and added another processor to the architecture to try to keep up with the playstations dedicated 3d hardware.
Sony and Microsoft took the route of catering to an established market and fighting with each other while using their market dominance to try to cram an unneccessary media format down the throat of their consumers, rather than seeing the bigger picture.
Anyone who isnt a geek or a teenager has no fucking clue what to do with an xbox controller. No one who plays games casually can remember where the buttons are, what they do, how to hold the controller or even what they are supposed to do.
That is largely why you see so much nostalgia for the NES in such a huge age group: the controls were really really simple (the wii control is actually just a combination of a NES pad, the light-gun, and the power-glove — but they all actually work this time!). Third-party crap aside, nintendo’s masterworks were memorable because they were so varied and easy to play.
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… Long story short: when game ergonomics break into the main consumer multimedia entertainment there will be an unprecedented jump in processing power (that will be able to handle next-generation resolutions) and the device that will become Iconic for its function (Tivo, iPod, WalkMan) will be one that redefines the role of currently existing technology in a slick package with an intuitive and accessible interface. Grandma, 6 year old Billy, and Joe Shmoe will all be able to plug it in and use it, not just freaks like me. Using it should be enjoyable and straightforward, with nothing to remember. In order to accomplish such advanced tasks easily, a very clean and well polished user interface must be there. This will all come from the game industry.
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Fucking nailed it.
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This will involve (somehow) changing the menuing system (and abandoning the Desktop metaphor) to be more 3-dimensional, rather than moving through lists of menus, it will be more like areas of menus based on context. Some of this reasearch is being done for the desktop, as the standard 3d computing power is being so underutilized by most PCs. ”
This has happened for the PC, a small group branched the Linux window manager Compiz into a new piece of eyecandy called “Beryl”, this coupled with the Ubuntu distribution and packaging model has caused a major expansion in the home Linux market (generally Linux is used in business and mainframe level applications, though firefox and open-office and many other general productivity tools have been available). I havnt taken the time to use this personally (i just use shells for everything), but I have heard that its nicer than Aero, microsofts neutered 5 year effort to make a better desktop.
Though I still hold that the desktop metaphor is quite broken.
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The thing that everyone gets that will replace their stereo, dvd player, cd player, and all that other bulky consumer gear will control more like Pac-man than like your standard TV remote. That will set the standard, and thats when mainstream adoption will come, because someone will figure out a better way of sending porn across it.
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Close, but not quite. The wii has a dvd drive, but has not released a standard player in the dashboard, nor have they added players for standard audio and video formats.
It does have an excellent picture viewer, and web browser that supports flash and AJAX apps (like google maps and gmail). You can watch youtube videos and google vids.
Sony did a better job in terms of media streaming and network connectivity, but at the tradeoff of costing more than a cheap computer.
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The next generation of consoles will be close to that, but the device will need to be something that is not seen as something just for videogames.
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All 3 systems handled this differently: microsoft has a pay service that is full featured, but locked down by DRM and nickel and dimes everything, including more storage space. Its features include movie rentals and being able to buy certain classic games for download, but like the original XBOX is geared towards multi-player online gaming, which I have no taste for. It is a subscription service, but I believe the fee is nominal ($50/yr) compared to Warcraft or whatever other big online games there are.
Sony has released “home” which looks like a cross between the wii’s mii avatars and microsofts gaming communities, but it is still targeted towards meeting people for online games. They have a version of Folding@home to model protein folding through distributed applications, which has potential for some real breakthroughs at a scientific level, but not much interest as a local application. Note that the cell is excellent at this and a PS3 will kill a high end computer in this kind of number crunching hands-down.
Nintendo ships with several utilities: A news reader (AP service, not expandable), a real-time weather forecast, a web-browser, a picture viewer and a few small channels that relate to player avatars (mii’s). Like microsoft, they also allow downloads of classic games (NES, SNES, N64, TG16, Genesis), but the web services are free, use your standard ISP and the only cost is selling the roms.
I was in Japan last week and there is no question that the Wii is being marketed to a huge audience, especially hyping the internet benefits. While it currently lacks a keyboard, they were successful in making
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The drawback, is that these are not as kick ass for just general computing, so there will probably be a large exodus in the next couple years from the bloated pc to lots of cheap consumer hardware that does things like play cds, but also rip them to a harddrive and create a local network with wireless devices that can tune in your mp3 collection like a radio. Ditto with DVD’s. Look how much wireless internet has taken off in the last couple years. Every starbucks has it, and even some stadiums and university campuses, why shouldnt your new DVD player?
This will also coincide with the Recording and Music industries finally caving in or adopting an efficient internet distribution policy that works on a similar model as cable TV on demand. This is a matter of time. Bittorrent is just a more efficient Tivo (when it comes to its actual application in getting video).
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The Wii comes with wireless access, you need a special cable to use a traditional line. So does the PS3, I dont know if it can rip across a network, but its getting closer, but still inaccessible for a non-gamer audience.
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Consoles will offer the most and best features first, and then competitors will release other products, but their inputs will be based on remote controls, and consoles will be based on their own research.
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Time will tell on this one, but Nintendo redefined game controls and a remote control in one swoop. You _will_ see more of this, as every taiwanese accessory and knock of starts with ‘i’, you will see this form and more intuitive controls based on simple motion than pushing lots of buttons to program things.
Every single game control input innovation has come from nintendo, they made the gamepad, shoulder buttons, analog triggers (ironically they made the initial NES pad because analog joysticks didnt work), rumble packs. The light gun was a modification from an original duck hunt game:
http://www.siliconera.com
Though the intellivision I think was the first system to have 4 ports for joysticks built in.
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When this style of home media becomes dominant (and it will), the most successful will be the device with the best form. It will be simple, and intuitive, and the controls will match the tight, well-polished interface. My first guess for someone would be apple, with their loyal cult of consumers and reputation for intuitive use, but they are already laying the groundwork for capturing the desktop music production market (wait until iTunes integrates with its standard GarageBand recording software to allow home studios to directly publish and sell their music through itunes), and they arent really geared to non-ipod consumer gear.
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Apple, Microsoft and a few independent linux vendors have been working on making media center set-top computers. The one running Linux is pretty insane, but probably still be for geeks only. These vendors will continue to fight for slices of an existing tech-geek market, which is small compared to the casual gamer market or the general family living room.
- I was wrong about GarageBand/iTunes integration. It seemed like the position they were jockying for, but as usual, Apple prefers to keep most of its consumer products as being expensive toys so make people shell out top-dollar for their high end systems which can be used as creative tools.
I really dont like that company.
What is interesting is that nintendo was not even an option at the time I mentioned this, and I had only touched a game-cube a couple times and was generally unimpressed. This is long before their announcement of the Wii. Also noticable is that the wii is very honed on the simplicity aspect. Anyone can use it and there is very little to learn.
Again, I stress the inuitiveness and simplicity of the interface is what will actually create the new market.
To cite a different example from the gaming industry: Take a look at the Sims. Instead of choosing a current genre and fighting for a piece of the pie, Will Wright modified his concept of simulations and created a virtual dollhouse, and created a new market which was immediately monopolized because there was only one product.
The market: females who play video games. Not geeks, not someone who would already own a system or an oddball in the current market, just average females who have a computer and probably play solitaire because its short and engaging and isnt some fucked up male adrenaline fantasy either involving shooting brown people in the back of the head (a very popular genre nowadays), or some fantasy bullshit where its a sorceress chick with huge tits in a g-string.
He made a new type of game and a new way of playing. There are no points. There is no point. Its a dollhouse. Then he franchised the hell out of it by selling virtual pieces of furniture and party packs.
Blizzard did a similar thing a few years back with world of warcraft, which opened the online market wide open. The genius of that? They pay for the game and a monthly subscription.
30 million players at 14.95 a month? Thats a market.
So the Wii is not the be-all end-all of this, but I believe Nintendo has set the iconic form, and with a low price point (1/3rd of the PS3, half of the XBOX), it is a lot more appealing to a new audience.
They have been tightlipped about upcoming releases, but as the shortfall of systems is eased, mark my words, you will start to see an awful lot of these (a DVD player is scheduled later this year as a test market in japan). You will see them in homes of people that would never buy an XBOX, and even some people who probably dont play games at all.
With the exception of a few duds (R.O.B., virtual boy, NES Multitap with no first party games) they have been the leader of user input design for over 20 years and a successful game manufacturer since the 1800′s.
We havnt hit the whole synthesis of portable data and thin clients and media , but if they play their cards right they could leapfrog past the horsepower of the hardcore gaming systems, and make a new market entirely.
Or they could totally fuck it up, like they have a few times before.
My money, literally is on them.
A final-note: I said for the media integration to happen, the major hardware, software and recording industry vendors will have to give up on DRM. This is beginning to happen:
- Apple, one of the worst offenders of this DRM crap is now selling DRM free music (albeit its encoded with your user code so they can still bust you if you distribute it).
- Microsoft has drawn their own noose. Vista was delayed for years, largely for writing in tons of nonsense at the request of the big companies to prevent file swapping, when they could have spent those thousands of man hours and millions (maybe billions) of dollars barking up the wrong tree. Vista in terms of evolution is a disappointment, they couldnt use their new proprietary technologies, and most of the major features were scaled back to look something like a franken-mac.
- Ubuntu, surprisingly, is getting people on Linux, partly because Microsofts draconian approach towards ownership.
This is a slow motion implosion but this nonsense will be remembered in the same idiotic light as when the motion picture association tried to make VCR’s illegal.
Its a buggy-whip company suing ford for making their business irrelevant.
Its the death-rattle of the parasites and share croppers suing their customers to keep their own wretched job. And when these scumbag IP lawyers and record execs fall, they can go back to chasing ambulances and selling cell-phone contracts.
OK, that was rambling.
In short, things are converging as I expected, but not entirely there in this generation.
The innovation was made in interface, and came from a game company.
The attempt to make a living-room set for all your media throughout the network is there between other systems and set-boxes, but still is a niche market.
Nintendo made a very good play with the wii and could conceivably be the iconic piece of technology, but the ball is in their court: They need a dvd player, and the ability to connect to local networks, both of which it can do. It would also need an all purpose media player, other than a flash player. The latter I can see happening, the former I think they would avoid because it would fall in the realm of geekery.
Finally, you are going to see a lot of things that are reminiscient of the wii’s simplified control style in new consumer electronics. They completely nailed that one.
And I still use my hacked XBOX for most things, but the wii browser blows away the homebrewed XBMC apps.