Sony, Microsoft execs slam PS3 & Xbox controllers – praise Wiimote
Controllers are of the utmost importance for gamers, providing the link between the on screen action, and the input from the player. But are the Xbox 360 and PS3 behemoths the way to go, or is it the simpler, more intuitive Wiimote? Big guns at both Sony and Microsoft have given surprising answers.
Apart from being cheaper, less powerful and having much crappier graphics, the main difference between the Wii and the PS3 and Xbox 360 is the controller method of choice.
While both the Xbox and PS3 controllers are just evolved versions of what has come before, with some extra buttons, and maybe the odd new feature here and there, the Wii is something completely different, and gives both experienced gamers, and first time players, a new way to interact with what is on their TV screens.
According to GamesIndustry.biz, Phil Harrison, the soon to be ex president of Sony worldwide studios and Peter Molyneux, boss of Microsoft’s Lionhead studio, both think the Wii control system is the way to go. Harrison said at the GDC last week:
“You hand somebody a game controller and it’s like you’ve handed them a live gun or a hand grenade with the pin taken out.”
He also praised the Wiimote for being a “non-game centric device” which has bought an element of “democratisation” to controlling videogames. He also expressed his admiration for Apple’s iPhone for appealing to a user’s natural instincts.
“I saw this first hand a few weeks ago where a two year old was playing with an iPhone and he knows how to get the pictures up of mum and dad. The two year-old then intuitively thought that all electronic devices worked like that. He’s pressing the TV to change channels.”
“He’s right and the rest of us are wrong – that should be applied universally. Apple should be applauded for that innovation.”
Molyneux meanwhile admitted that utilising all the buttons on the 360 controller would mean a game would become less approachable for anyone apart from experienced gamers:
“We don’t use half the buttons on the 360 controller, simply because the whole dream I’ve got is that someone will sit down to play Fable 2 who has never played a game before and they can play with someone who’s played games the whole of their lives.”
“I wish there wasn’t so many buttons on the controller. You have to approach that in design terms by thinking you’ve only got one button.”
Harrisons comments are particularly interesting seeing as he is on his way out of the door at Sony, for pastures new, as yet unknown. He has already talked up social gaming as the future of the industry while claiming that Sony invented it with the likes of Singstar and Buzz. The chances are he won’t be headed for Nintendo, but I bet he’ll end up somewhere which is focussing on simpler, more casual social gaming.
The Xbox 360 controller is no doubt a brilliant controller, with gamers and reviewers alike loving it’s usability and almost keyboard and mouse like qualities, but is it too complicated to ever allow the Xbox to become console which bypasses age and gender to become a must have for the whole family?
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March 30th, 2008
i want to no what the buttons a ps3 controllar is on a xbox controlar y cos i just got a ps3 and i hade a xbox and number 2 i have ninja gadien sigma on ps3 and there is not manny cheats and on xbox there is heps for it ninja gadien sigma and ha ever 1 who reads ths add my msn and i will tell you heps of cheats ok my msnis gj3153@hotmail.com