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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.'"
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.
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.
"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.
Apparently it cost SpaceX around $300 million to develop the Falcon 9 rocket. That is one expensive controller.
It cost over $100 million, the reason is if you have too much money, you spend too much money. There is very little reason for them to be efficient. Why do you think Facebook can offer $3 billion dollars for snapchat, a company that has no revenue. They have more money than they know what to do with.
Think of it this way if you got a billion dollars today you may go out and by some expensive sport car(s), would they get you from a to b any quicker, safer, more reliably, no, no, and no. You still need to keep to the speed limit, most cars can do that, with that extra power you are probably more likely to crash they are not designed for safety. A car like a Toyota is far more reliable. The only thing you gain is showing people you can afford to spend that much money on a car.
Sorry about the car analogy.
Look at these yachts, http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/10-expensive-yachts-world/ number 1 is a fake but number 2. $800 mil for a yacht, that's 8 Xbox controllers.
Microsoft have teams that are way too large. Give a small motivated workforce of 5 people one month and they would probably come up with five better controllers. Microsoft loves to use big spend and big numbers as if that really means something. But at the end of the day it comes down the person leading the project and whether they can make right decisions or not. Clearly the leader of this project failed miserably if the best they could come up with with $100 million is just a remake of the previous controller.
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").
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.
They have more money than they know what to do with.
and yet, we have so many unemployed GOOD engineers in the US.
companies are bleeding money but 'cant afford to pay a living wage' to engineers. gotta have lots more h1b's. "we are so poor!"
I hate capitalism. its time we found a better system. this one is broken beyond repair, if a company can spend this much on a stupid plastic human interface gadget.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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
Too bad Microsoft just burned all that money, and not paid some poor, $100k+ engineers to develop the controller!
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