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RJ Mical On The DS, PSP, Current Game Hardware

Posted by simoniker on from the old-guard dept.

Thanks to 1UP for its interview with Amiga luminary and 3DO and Lynx co-creator RJ Mical, discussing many facets of portable gaming, including his views on the Sony PSP ("Well, the thing I dislike most about it is that I didn't get to do it"), possible disadvantages for the Nintendo DS ("The running joke in the [Fathammer] office [when touchscreens and styluses were being tested] was that we were actually funded by the screen makers; they could increase their sales, because indeed, people were always breaking their screens"), and lessons learned earlier in Mical's career ("Probably the most important thing I learned from the Lynx: never trust focus groups... They all told us to make it big, so we made it big.")

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Focus Groups... by FatElvis2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Never trust Focus Groups... a very common fall-back. Rule #1 of new product research, don't expect to walk in a room of 8 random people and expect them to tell you what to do. They can only respond to what you show them, and only in the context of what you showed them prior. Did they show consumers a small device? How many groups did they conduct, and who with? The vast majority of focus groups are a waste of money, and a crutch for insecure designers, product development, advertisers, and marketers so they have something to blame later for their failure. Use the qualitative to build depth, gain insight, and tasty verbatims to include in internal communications. But not to decide how big a portable gaming device should be. If I were the researcher in the room I'd immediately start to wonder about gamers asking for a "big" portable gaming machine.... at odds with 50 years of tech miniaturization trends. LOL. So the failure of the Lynx is blamed on Market Research. Give me a break.

    1. Re:Focus Groups... by GlenRaphael · · Score: 2, Informative
      [focus groups] can only respond to what you show them, and only in the context of what you showed them prior. Did they show consumers a small device?

      Yes, as a matter of fact they did. From the article:

      Probably the most important thing I learned from the Lynx: never trust focus groups. In all the focus group testing, and we did a lot of it with consumers, we had a bunch of different models that we showed them. [We asked] "which one do you like? Which one would you like to have it be?" We showed them big ones; we showed them little ones. We showed them gigantic ones; we showed them little tiny ones. They loved the big ones. They all told us, "Make it big. Make it big. This one feels like it's substantial and I'm really getting my money's worth." They all told us to make it big, so we made it big. And when it came out on the market, they all said, "Why is this damn thing so big?" It'd drive me nuts, because the original Lynx was mostly air space inside. We put it in, because that's what they told us they wanted.
      --
      I play Nerd-Folk!
  2. Re:Durability by Zangief · · Score: 3, Informative

    I remember a Miyamoto Interview on Gamespy, in which he comented that the sonic game was excesive, and that it damaged the touch screen from the intense rubbing. He said that they would create guidelines for the use of the touchscreen.

    However, lately Nintendo has delivered some very resistent products. SP for example. Gamecube has a rate of failure notably lower than PS2/Xboxes (but it has its problems). So I think that the DS won't have any problem of this kind