PS3 v. Wii, developer style

December 30, 2006

!(inset)http://www.thudfactor.com/images/grandma_wii.jpg!:http://www.flickr.com/photos/azadam/335885894/

Ernest Adams at “Gamasutra”:http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20061222/adams_01.shtml explores the PS3 and the Wii from a game _developer_ perspective rather than a player’s. He doesn’t address the toolset. Instead he talks about potential.

With the Wiii, Nintendo has clearly opted out of the video games arms race. The PS3 is far more powerful, and no one debates that. What the Wii has going for it, Adams says, is creativity:

bq. So which do I want to design for? From a creativity standpoint, it’s the Wii, hands down (or up!). The human-computer interaction people have a buzzword they’re fond of: affordance. Affordance refers to the possible actions that a tool, or other object, provides or suggests to the user. The Wii Remote offers a different and quite new set of affordances to the player: steering with it, waving it, jabbing it, pointing it, stirring with it, paddling with it, and so on. It’s the wizard’s magic wand we’ve always wanted. All we have to do is supply the magic.

A colleague of mine has brought her Wii to work a couple of times and the reaction has been pretty significant. Most of the people I work with are not hard-core gamers, but a lot of folks are having fun with the Wii. I was one of the people who laughed at the new controller, but it really seems to have connected with casual and non-gamers.

And I’m excited that I’ll be able to write games for the Wii using Flash. Now, if I could only get my hands on one…

??Photo: “Even Grandma Loves Wii”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/azadam/335885894/ by “AZAdam”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/azadam/??

Posted in Art and Writing