Dean's World

I saw what Nintendo was trying to do the moment I heard about the Wii. I thought it was genius. And it is. Still, I remember the naysayers. I don't regret standing in the bitter cold for 6 hours to get one the day it launched. In fact I had fun.

And if gamers still aren't convinced about Nintendo's strategy I ask them why it's next to impossible to find a Wii in stores but it's getting increasignly easier to find a PS3.

The Wii has the potential to change how we play games on a fundamental level as well as open the experience itself to a customer base that wouldn't otherwise consider purchasing a "gaming" console. If you think about it, Nintendo changed how games were played with the original NES (or Famicom). All consoles since then have only build upon Nintendo's original innovation. It's almost poetic that Nintendo is about to change everything again.

Quick: name a major console interface innovation since 1985 that was not pioneered by Nintendo. I can't...

Perhaps your tubes are blocked.

So when do Wii party at Kevin's?

On further thought, I also want to say Force Feedback, but I don't know who actually came up with that first.

What's even more funny. At the place where I work, one of my managers walked out with the only remaining PS3 in the store on his shoulder. Almost everyone ignored him except for one person. Note that at the time, they were still hard to find. They asked him, "I see you have Playstation 3's do you have any Wii's?"

I about laughed my ass off. Also, I can't wait til I have the disposable income to get one. That and the X-Box 360 are going to crush Sony's new, overpriced, un-fun system.

With the exception of an occasional strategy game, I'm not into computer games. I've always said I would rather program a computer than play games on it. The idea of a console system that I can't program has no interest for me. And the very console game paradigm -- "Here's a standard set of buttons. Figure out how they map to actions in the game. Oh, and there are cheat codes and special tricks, but we're not going to tell you them. Figure them out." -- offends me as a user interface designer. I've spent over a decade lecturing developers to make more clear and simple interfaces rather than ones which you "just have to know."

And on the subject of cheat codes and patterns and secrets and such, I am flat-out, no contest wrong, and the console developers are right, but for an entirely non-game reason: these cheat codes and patterns and secrets help build the social ecosystem that helps to spread games. The kid who knows the tricks will be the cool kid, and other kids will flock to him or her in order to learn. I've seen this dynamic in operation, and I've decided it's a smart way to turn customers into a community, which makes them more loyal. So they're right, and I'm wrong; but if I designed my software this way, I would never have a single customer.

But from its ad campaign, the Wii is aimed at a broader market than just hard-core gamers and kids. The social network effects of tricks and codes aren't as useful in that broader market; but the Wii style of play -- I'm not sure if they've given it a name, but I call it emulation -- will be very easily understood within that broader market. The Wii fascinates me. I think the user interface potential is amazing.

And I wish I had the time and the 3D graphics skills and the resources to write Wii games. If the fine control in the controls is good enough, I think it could allow for a kick-ass sport fencing game. I've even more-or-less figured out the user interface. I would use the secondary controller -- which honestly has a shape similar to many modern fencing grips -- to control the blade, and use the primary controller to control your movement on the strip. If the secondary controller's accelerometers are sensitive enough, you should be able to emulate any thrust or parry or disengage. As for the primary controller, you would use the main button to decide when you're moving. If you move your hand without the button down, the system ignores you; but if you hold the button down, then your character moves the way the controller does. Forwards, backwards, side-to-side; but also lift-and-forwards for a ballestra, lift-and-back for a reassemblement, and drop down for displacement. For a lunge, press the button on the secondary controller; and just like a real lunge, you'll have to learn to thrust-then-lunge, not lunge-then-thrust. (Trust me on this, as someone who still can't get it right.) Maybe program some of the other buttons with maneuvers such as the fleche.

In terms of UI, there's just nothing complex here: if you know how to fence, you know how to play; and I dare say that if you don't know how to fence, the Wii could even teach you some fundamentals of strategy and bladework, though it won't teach you footwork and it wont give you stamina. It could potentially even be a good enough fencing simulation to serve as a training aid.

So yes, I'm very facinated by the Wii. And very jealous of Kevin right now.