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Xbox One Controller Cost Over $100 Million To Develop
mrspoonsi writes "The Xbox One controller went through many radical designs, including a built-in pico projector and a cartridge designed to release smell. Apparently, 'the core base didn't appreciate them,' so these wacky features were dropped in favor of a standard controller. According to VentureBeat, over $100 million worth of research went into the design they ended up using. 'Microsoft’s first tweaks for a new controller focused on the overall size and how it’d fit into hands, golden or otherwise. Using the Xbox 360 controller as a starting point, the engineers would make plastic-molded or 3D-printed prototypes that were each 1 millimeter wider or narrower than the last, testing a full range of up to plus or minus 8 millimeters. “That gave us the ability to test, with actual users including women and children, which width feels best,” said Morris. “We tested with more than 500 people throughout the course of the project. All ages, all abilities.” ... Morris and his team then looked at different thicknesses and shapes of the grips (or “lobes,” as he calls them), plus the angle of the triggers, different styles of analog sticks, and more.'"
Seriously? OVER a million? It's a nice controller, but really... Maybe this is one of the things wrong with Microsoft (and perhaps many big corps these days), they are not "nimble" and hevent been for at least 20 years. They have a lot to overcome if they want to remain "relevent", and Ballmer's departure is onle a very small part of that.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I don't care to use a controller that would fit that many people.
Reminds me when Whirlpool released front loading washers here in the 90s, proudly boasting they spent over $60 million in R&D and they boasted how front loaders used 1/3 the water and less energy.... except that front loaders were popular in Europe since at least the 1950s; my grandma over there still has hers.
MS could have saved some money by offering the controller in 2 or 3 sizes. Plus it would have set them apart from the other guys.
and a cartridge designed to release smell
Damn, now I don't get to say: "Your Xbox stinks!"
VentureBeat may be correct in saying that Microsoft spent $100M to develop the controller... but come on.
There is no way you couldn't develop something just as good for a quarter that cost, or less. If this is true, Microsoft shareholders should be rioting over the amount of waste, fraud, and/or abuse that took place.
I hate to state the obvious, but no one controller design will be comfortable to such a wide variety of people. Either you have to target the core demographic responsible for the bulk of game sales, or you offer more than one size controller. Anything else sounds like a waste of time.
Better known as 318230.
And they still end up with a single one-size-fits-all controller. If they just made two controllers to fit more of the broad range of hand sizes, they'd be so much better off for it.
Looks like they didn't make any substantial changes to it besides moving the home button and going with a different design for the D-pad, which was more or less perfected in the SNES/Genesis era.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You're doing it wrong!
The researchers probably found there isn't just one controller - there were many, many good controllers, each for a different audience.
Why didn't they release multiple controllers, one for kids, one for adults? One for women, one for men? As Prego discovered, there isn't one spaghetti sauce that makes everyone happy; there are many, many sauces, all of which will make some people happy.
Cool. How many smells fit in one cartridge?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
"over $100 million worth of research went into the design they ended up using"
Well, that's not quite true. Perhaps $100M went into designing and testing all the different prototypes they ultimately discarded, and the one they used... but the one that they finally decided upon only cost a fraction of that.
inputs and shit like head trackers?
I mean... this is 2013... YOU WOULD THINK Microsoft could ya'know... sell more controller DEV KITS, than actual controllers, and make some $$
Thankfully there's Valve, who isn't terrified of any change to the Dualshock design whatsoever. Looking forward to getting my hands on a fully programmable controller, supposedly much better at shooters than a dualshock as well. "Consumers don't know what they want, because I haven't shown it to them yet" is apparently a phrase not heard of at either Sony or MS. They seem to stick to "do what already works and then charge them hundreds of dollars for it."
Apparently it cost SpaceX around $300 million to develop the Falcon 9 rocket. That is one expensive controller.
That is a lot of cash for such a small sample size. How is that meant to be representative? Willing to bet they where all from the same place too (ie: US city) not Asia, Europe, etc.
Even the 'more that' claus leaves me thinking they should have had more '0's on the end of that number.
Priorities.
Imagine how much they spent on DRM.
Seems that in much the same way that having too little stifles creativity, so does having too much.
What they did here, basically, was shit a bunch of times into nice neat little carefully marked boxes, and then picked the one which stank the least.
I would call this process anti-creativity. Also, coincidentally, how most movies in Hollywood are now made.
Sounds like Sheldon (the big bang theory) deciding he's going to fix eggs - embarking on an expensive and time consuming testing course and concluding that eggs are already as good as they're ever going to be.
So it took them 100M to change the basic shape, switch to micro USB for charging and move the Xbox button to the top?
In the end they settled on the same design with a few changes. That pretty much sums up Microsoft, they cant innovate. It sounds more like they were so desperate to try and outdo the PS4 they threw money at any stupid idea that came along without really thinking it out. Instead of trying to truly be original, they took a half-assed shotgun approach. Smell O vision, really? I understand it takes money to make prototypes but 100M sounds desperate.
They probably included the cost of development of all the previous gamepads that finally evolved into the latest xbox controller.
Microsoft, for all the suggestions made (only on Slashdot, not surprisingly) of its imminent demise, has a shitload of cash. To them, money is not an issue in winning the household battlefield - they'll throw as much money as required for as long as required until they win, either through an iteratively superior product, superior marketing, or just through plain attrition until the competition can't finance the war anymore. Microsoft will do ANYTHING to ensure long term victory. Worked for the XBox 360 and they're hoping it'll work for the Xbone. I don't care about consoles much so don't care either way, but this $100 million spent on developing a controller shows they aren't being conservative at all.
So they can drop 100 million on controller design but can't be bothered to make a surveymonkey poll to find out that their users still want to be able to sell used games before they shoot their mouth off about it at the opening presentation? The only thing that was more fun than watching that train wreck is the anticipation for SONY somehow managing to fuck up the golden opportunity they've been handed. However they do it, I'm sure it'll be epic. I mean, they could NOT fuck it up, but it's SONY we're talking about here...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There's something really sad in looking at all those research groups who fail to get adequate funding for medical research or research to otherwise improve a person's life, and yet a company is able to waste $100 million developing a single component for a fucking GAMING CONSOLE of all things.
Microsoft isn't a Government department and they can do what they like, but it's just so damn disproportionate the amount of money that goes into research in terms of long-term importance. People are dying because there's not enough research to treat various diseases, but fuck that, the angle permutations of a life-wasting device must be calculated precisely, gimme more money. OK, thanks. Fuck this planet.
As someone with an overly sensitive nose. who once worked retail. you people reak. yes. even you. all of you.
I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It always felt too big for me. And I'm a big guy with big hands.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Even though you can whip together a simple controller for $10 (including labor) from a few switches and bits of wire, doesn't mean that you've accomplished the same thing as Microsoft.
On the technical end, you're dealing with a fair bit of electronics and software to support everything from reading a button's state to streaming audio from the console. On top of that, they have to consider factors such as ergonomics and marketing. For a company like Microsoft with competitors like Nintendo and Sony, it is best to do their homework first even if it ends up costing a lot more.
Still no cure for cancer:-(
...and instead, the Russians just used a pencil.
Anyone using any Microsoft product knows how that feels. And yes, you have been infected by it.
A good area to put research into, in my opinion. Valve may have won the new controller research, but we'll have to wait and see.
The single most important factor in a console is the control scheme. If the control scheme sucks, it feels like PC console ports do.
Seriously, where can I sign up to get a game controller that does all that? I honestly would love to know what my waifu smells like in my imported Japanese sims game. I'm sure the pico projector would have been great for those late-night don't tell mommy sessions for teenagers lol.
this is madness...
M$ is horrible at 'human factors design'. I used to be an adjunct prof. teaching Human/Computer Interaction. Consistently, when a big company tried to integrate 'U/X' or 'human factors design' (the 90s version of U/X) it becomes abstraction layer hell burdening resources w/ architecture the user turns off immediately after setup after purchase. ex: Clippy
You mention the 'Start button' and the ridiculous money they spent to make it. Great example...like the Xbox One controller from TFA, it shows ***exactly*** why M$ design is awful.
***IT WAS A BUTTON THAT OPENED A PANE OF OTHER PROGAM ICONS****
the idea that making a button would require **any R/D at all** is insane...
Now let's talk about User Testing.
I've lead research projects examining internet technology and usability in several different contexts, from filming users on an iphone, doing all-device monitoring where a resarcher follows the subject all day and diaries what tech they interact with, testing the effectiveness of Bush-mandated abstanence-only website educadtion in Indiana, to simple likert scale user surverys
As a scientist, concerned about proper use of the scientific method & accurately contextualizing non-quantifiable factors, I have to say ****most user testing done in the industry is absolutely worthless****
TFA, Clippy, the fucking 'Start button', 'Metro'....it's all was obviously developed with the dumbest, most reductive user research available.
I love the domain of 'U/X'...the border between user and machine...it's challenging b/c it requires professional-level knowledge of both techinical and wholly-non technical information. It's the *future of design*...a cybernetic perspective...
But this is horseshit...I have to say 'human computer interaction' or people think I have a Marketing degree!!!!!
In defense of individual M$ designers who did nothing more than go to work and try to make the best product, fighting M$'s organizaitonal tendencies, fighting ass-kisser colleagues...for **THEM** I can acknowledge that their research wasnt wholly worthless as the data could be re-examined & tendencies observed. Also, I can acknowledge that in some parts of M$'s crap like Clippy I can see that *someone* on the team was putting the user's needs first.
Thank you Dave Raggett
No, no, no. They spent $100 Million to develop it, but it didn't cost that - there's a difference.
If you think about it, there should be one ideal basic controller shape. Yet Sony and the XBox One have different controllers...
I guess it comes down to which 500 people you are using as testers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you actually believe everyone stinks, you may be experiencing olfactory hallucinations, which are a common symptom of schizophrenia.
here's why you can know I am not making up my credentials...I really have done the work I claim
there are volumes of research that have already been done about *buttons* however you want to define the concept
also, why research *where* to put a button with that funciton? you should **let the user have the option** to have the button or where to locate it! as for where to put the button by default, by necessity it has to be on the edge somewhere, after that, since almost all languages read from right to left, virtually all users (except those that read hebrew as their primary language) would **expect** to see the 'start' button on the **left side of the screen**
You absolutely do not need to do anything more than a **simple literature review** and apply some basic technical design theory...that's to arrive at 'either top or bottom of left edge'
so that's two fairly similar options...from there let the design team decide!!!
*and of course let the user have the option to change the location at will or remove completely*
back to your question about 'buttons'......Ben Shneiderman's work is industry-standard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shneiderman
Here's a link his University page: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/
I'm not claiming Shneiderman is the magic bullet to all design questions, or that his design conceptualizations are fundamental to the industry...he made significant positive contributions...but his concepts are too linguistic-based 'make X more visible' sometimes & marketing people just have their way with it...
One of Shneiderman's major contributions, starting in the early 1980s, was formalizing a way to academically analyze all the research in computing across disciplines about things like 'how to design a good button'
Designing the User Interface is a current text written by him that is used in 100s of universities nationwide & globally. (btw don't pick him apart to me...i have my quibbles...) He ends up with very linguistic-based heuristics mostly, but if you combine his ideas with more formal language from true cyberneticists like Claude Shannon and Norbert Weiner then you can get some highly quantifiable data...
But regardless...Shneiderman's concepts are industry standard...how they are applied in the lab...well that's up to the researcher!
All of what M$ did with their 'Start' button was covered by Shneiderman in the 80s & continued to refine iteritively since then...
Thank you Dave Raggett
"Common" might be misplaced -
In general, hallucinations are "common" in many forms with Schizophrenia, but there are so many factors that play into it...I've been exposed to a community of people with it (or schizoaffective disorder) and they share some common ground but on the whole have very different hallucinations. "Common" would probably be voices, but even those vary remarkably from one person to the next.
Olfactory hallucinations may be closer to common in people on psychedelic drugs than those suffering from schizophrenia.
You should really get over that whole Windows 95 thing, you're getting to old to carry a grudge that heavy. They had NT back then if you wanted a real OS. Ahh, playing StarCraft on WinNT, those were the days (sure, it was the only real game that used DirectX back then, but that was one more real game than Linux had).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Ok, let's set the record straight. These articles are totally misleading. It didn't take anywhere near $100M to develop this controller. What happened is that MSFT spent $100M on an R&D adventure to design, build, and evaluate many different types of controllers before deciding that the current design, with a few tweaks, is the best way forward. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's a good use of the their R&D dollars. I bet the actual dev costs for the controller were closer to $20M. And considering that it will probably generate at least $3B in revenue for MSFT, $20M is small potatoes. Nintendo, by comparison, spends billions on interface/controller R&D.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
If you're interested in Norbert Weiner there's an ieee conference with some good speakers organised for June next year:
http://21stcenturywiener.org/
to come out with the only resulting controller... a slightly modified current one.
Thus wasted $80 million.
thanks for the info!
Thank you Dave Raggett
Here is a list of Shneiderman's 8 Golden Rules for anyone who might be interested. It's has been typically used as an introductory 'U/X' concept for years (me personally I introduce. the Law of Cybernetics first).
They've been restated many times since the 80s. From the source(http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.html)
These rules were obtained from the text Designing the User Interface by Ben Shneiderman.
To improve the usability of an application it is important to have a well designed interface. Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" are a guide to good interaction design.
1 Strive for consistency.
Consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar situations; identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens; and consistent commands should be employed throughout.
2 Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
As the frequency of use increases, so do the user's desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user.
3 Offer informative feedback.
For every operator action, there should be some system feedback. For frequent and minor actions, the response can be modest, while for infrequent and major actions, the response should be more substantial.
4 Design dialog to yield closure.
Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and end. The informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions gives the operators the satisfaction of accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop contingency plans and options from their minds, and an indication that the way is clear to prepare for the next group of actions.
5 Offer simple error handling.
As much as possible, design the system so the user cannot make a serious error. If an error is made, the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error.
6 Permit easy reversal of actions.
This feature relieves anxiety, since the user knows that errors can be undone; it thus encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. The units of reversibility may be a single action, a data entry, or a complete group of actions.
7 Support internal locus of control.
Experienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in charge of the system and that the system responds to their actions. Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather than the responders.
8 Reduce short-term memory load.
The limitation of human information processing in short-term memory requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be consolidated, window-motion frequency be reduced, and sufficient training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of actions.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Testing user design elements with actual users to determine the optimal approach is current recommended best practices.
It is always wise to test your assumptions, and to validate your design. Your arguments here are incorrect, and arguing against testing because it is simply known which path is the best is narrow minded atbest, and outright stupid at worst.
M$ wastes money as much as the U.S Government.
I was getting at their great research they talked about so much which resulted in that UI and they later nailed onto the NT tree.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
make it possible to plug your "microsoft" keyboard and mouse into the xbox and allow people to play with those. you already have basic usb support on these boxes and with most games having PC ports the controls would be a snap to import.
if they did this i would gladly play games on the xbox (as one of my thumbs doesn't bend at the knuckle it makes controller games practically unplayable, or at the least hurt very bad) especially FPS games..
The human race is a virus....
You speak a lot of abstract principles and assume that applying them is trivial. Sure, you can make some assumptions and hope for the best, but many businesses don't want to base their decisions on assumptions. Especially for something that is not just a button, but trying to decide the main interaction most people will make with the OS, people who won't know how to chose or change settings no matter how easy you make it (or simply don't care enough to bother).
here's why you can know I am not making up my credentials...I really have done the work I claim
The claim was never that you were making up your credentials, but that someone with such a background should see there is more depth to it. But you continue with a rather superficial treatment of it in this post here. Even if many of the things you bring up or link to are very important and insightful in general, it misses a big part of the picture. The whole original point was that it is not just a button, but the action it performs.
Might as well complain no design work ever needed to be done on the steering wheel, because by the time it came about we already had thousands of years of experience with wheels.
I'd say the taskbar is one great piece of UI advancement that MS can claim credit for. The start menu was just cleaning up the Win 3.1 clutter of nested icons into a standard menu tree, and nothing all that original, but the taskbar was special. I still force my new version of Windows into the Win2k/XP style of one-click-to-change-focus (the new combined button approach in Windows and Unity where it's 2+ clicks really annoys me).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hate to be a moaning Mindy but I went to this psychedelic youtube video that was claimed to open up your mind subconsciously, subliminally to extraterrestrials. I had a strange dream that night. The world collapsed into ruin as Kinect (in particular) brought full augmented into every moment of peoples daily and working lives
(especially America) I say this because my dream was in America (even though I don't live there) and it was Kinect-like, in design. They will be able to put the technology into your body using stickers like bandaids.
Just a dream I know, but the circumstances and dream content are interesting..
anyone would have come up with that given just a bit of time. Personally, I didn't have a problem with how the OS/2 task list popped up on key stroke command and still think it's a waste of time/space showing the tasks at the bottom or top of the screen. If you recall, OS/2 3 had a task launcher at the bottom of the desktop. It wasn't docked to the screen edge but it wasn't bad with with little drawers which popped up/out to show more options.
I really think Microsoft was using PR instead of real research when they came up with the 95 desktop UI. At the time, OS/2's Workplace Shell was an amazing object oriented desktop with independent folder color settings, folder background settings, developer inheritance so all the bells/whistles you expect from a folder would be part of a new folder which might have a split view. I just recall how many times Microsoft claimed lots of money was spent on research when nearly everything they ended up with was sub standard from what others had already done. Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get to where OS/2 or NEXT was 20 years ago.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
They did some genuinely new stuff here, adding scent to gaming hasn't really been done before even though it's dreamt about before. I understand the user studies didn't respond positively but at least they were willing to research the idea and try it - it's not really their fault that an idea that many people have to date thought was an awesome new idea didn't turn out to be appreciated by users in reality, but without spending that money to try it how the hell could they possibly know if it was a terrible idea in practice, or the next hot new idea? What if it had been appreciated? what if it triggered a new path in the technology world? what if it could've been extended to allow say people's smartphones to let them preview scent based products when shopping online for perfume or whatever? If that had happened it would've more than paid for the $100 million.
Of course if they knew from the outset that they were just going to end up with something similar to the last gen controller then they could've save tens of millions, but if you don't try new things how do you ever advance?
Good on them for trying new shit and taking a gamble, it didn't pay off this time but I hope the negative comments don't put them off trying to innovate in future. Innovation is exactly what stale old boring Microsoft is in desperate need of.
n/t
Thank you Dave Raggett
You know what they say about the very best, true genius inventions in the world? "I could have thought of that!" All the very best ideas are blindingly obvious in hindsight.
At the time, OS/2's Workplace Shell was an amazing object oriented desktop with independent folder color settings, folder background settings, developer inheritance so all the bells/whistles you expect from a folder would be part of a new folder which might have a split view.
Microsoft always did make products for non-geeks. From the start of /. this has made geeks fly off in a rage whenever MS dominates the market, but that's nonsense: of course the mainstream market isn't what geeks want. Now, when Ubuntu does the same thing? I'm joining in the nerdrage there, to be sure.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_&_Experimentation_Tax_Credit
The current extension expires on December 31, 2013
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