I have seen the future and it is…Wii?
by DanIn a scene I’m sure was repeated a million times Christmas night, I witnessed people who “haven’t played a computer game since Pac Man” and can barely send email (not to mention my six-year-old) experiment with cutting edge interaction design, in the form of the gestural interface of the Wii. It’s like magic and it points — literally and figuratively — towards an ubicomp future that blends easily-learned behavior with digital results.
Trying it out myself reminded me of the first time I used an iPod and was like “Oh! This is…delightful”. How clever! As a bonus, we now have something in the popular consciousness besides the iPod we can point to as an example of good interaction design.
God bless us all, every Wii.
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December 29th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Its pretty amazing, and really has a lot to do with the DS and its success with non-gamers. Without that system, I don’t know if Nintendo would of taken the risk of making the Wii.
January 2nd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
There are both PC and MAC drivers for the wii which I would expect to result in some interesting implementations cropping up fairly soon. Here’s a guy that has built an audio player controller with a Wii on linux
http://walter.schreppers.com/
The Wii controller could be a big seller in itself, may have defined a new market.
January 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I particularly like the way the wiimote vibrates when one moves it over a link. Apart from the obvious simple pleasure of playable games. My kids have an xbox too, and I’m struck by the lack of real fun and joy in many of the games
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:06 pm
[...] My holiday break involved lots of time playing video games with the kids on the Wii. Like many of you, I’m pretty knocked out by it. Naturally, interaction designers are going gaga over the novelty of the Wiimote. Dan Saffer asked if the Wii is the future standard in interaction design. Amir Dotan doted on the gestural interface. Last month, James Surowiecki had a nice piece in the New Yorker outlining the business success of Nintendo’s decision to focus on what they do best: make entertaining gaming experiences. [...]
April 5th, 2007 at 7:53 am
My kids have an xbox too, and I’m struck by the lack of real fun and joy in many of the games