Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo's GCNext Direction Outlined By Iwata
Thanks to GameSpy for its in-depth interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata regarding "what's gone wrong, what's gone right, and why Nintendo will end up on top." Iwata admits that "the competition is tougher than ever before; and in the short run, we have seen declining profitability", but makes it clear that the next-gen GameCube (which he calls "GCNext or GCN") isn't about raw processing power - rather, Nintendo are "discussing... what should be done to entertain people in a new way; and in order to achieve this, what functionality must be added to our current technology."
Advancing graphics is one thing, but advancing control peripherals is just as important. Let's look at the history of games for a good example:
If you stretch as far back as the 70's, arcade games had very primitive visuals, but some of the better games offered sophisticated input control.
Examples:
PONG uses a rotary "spinner" control. So even though the game consists of controlling a rectangle to hit a square "ball", the input is still pretty advance, with the position of your "rectangle" moving up and down proportional to the rate at which you turn the spinner controller. Imagine if the game designers used a joystick instead. (For you younger folk, imagine the game "Arkanoid" with a joystick for input instead.)
Centipede, Missile Command:
Used a trackball for player control. So although quick reflexes are important to master a game like Centipede, there's also the skill of mastering use of a trackball controller to move the player object.
Tron: Both a joystick for player control, and a spinner for aiming your shots.
Track n Field: press two buttons as fast as possible to get your player to go fast. Imagine how boring this game would be with just a joystick you pushed left to run left.
Light gun games: Goes without saying... Light guns are one of those peripherals that HAVE made their way onto home consoles for pretty much every generation.
Racing games with steering wheels and pedals: Again, thankfully we have these available for most generations of game consoles (but not all of us bother to fork over the cash to buy such devices).
In the mid to late 80's, games tended to all use joysticks and buttons. It was no coincidence they offer little in the way of innovative control input. One exception was Street Fighter II. They introduced the concept of performing "moves", such as semi-circle motions with the joystick. I need not mention what that game "started"...
And speaking of Street Fighter... the original Street Fighter had two big huge rubber buttons instead of the 6 buttons of different strength. You'd have to literally punch the big button as hard as you could and the strength of your real-world punch translated into the strength of your on-screen character's strength. No, this didn't work that well, since you got tired or could hurt your hand (it didn't take long before these arcade games got retrofitted with ordinary buttons) but you all get the point right? There's a reason why arcade game designers even came up with new input ideas like this.
Back to consoles... When the Nintendo 64 appeared and had an analog joystick, and we saw what 3D could really offer, thanks to Mario 64, it opened up a new realm of gameplay. But I feel we could still explore new play mechanics through innovative input devices. Imagine playing a game like Super Monkey Ball with a trackball. (Or that new game from Namco where you roll around picking up everything you touch...) We need new kinds of controllers, and innovative use of the traditional analog controllers. The more games remain "push left and the thing moves left".
~RB