On Wings of Paper and Wood
In 2008, Sean Malstrom posted an article entitled “
Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy” in which he examined casual gaming as the bird that took wing from Nintendo's command and how other companies were attempting to
emulate it by examining the structure of the creature itself, and not the underlying components or physics of what was happening. The other companies were akin to the flight pioneers of the early 1900s with paper wings and crazy winged contraptions, or “birdmen”. In essence, these companies didn't know HOW casual gaming was a success, or what it took exactly to make them successful. They wanted in, so they began churning out ports. Creating clones of a popular phenomena is nothing new; when one war-based first-person shooter or Grand Theft Auto-style game comes out every company creates a franchise to emulate it. However it is a far more difficult thing to copy a shift in dynamic.
But casual gaming was only half the equation of Nintendo's runaway success. The Wii console introduced the most advanced motion controls of any console at the time, and the fans loved it. Four years later and the other major companies are deciding that motion control is something they want for themselves as well. If the Wii is successful and they have casual games and motion controlled games, that will make their console more popular and more appealing, right?
The past two years at the E3 conference in California both Sony and Microsoft have been demonstrating the progress they made in their brand new motion control systems. Microsoft demonstrated Kinect, a camera that captured full-body movement and contained no extra controllers aside from the wide camera bar. Sony unveiled the Playstation Move, featuring a camera and a motion control wand and side analog stick attachment. Both companies demonstrated what they had so far with little more than elaborate tech demos and fun, small, casual games. These would be available at release and demonstrated what they could do and gave the overall impression that they could be fun for the whole family too.
...But the birdmen aren't birds; they're people with wings jumping off cliffs, hoping that they got it right. Though Microsoft's interpretation of motion controls is the most ambitious, Sony is the true birdman of motion controls, sporting accessories that are nearly remodeled Wii hardware. Both the Xbox360 and the Playstation 3 offer advanced hardware and high definition graphics, and boast and impressive library of franchises at their disposal. Both companies could do well with their endeavors, which would be fortunate, as both companies boast that their consoles will have a life cycle that extends for eight or more years. They hope they're making the right move (no pun intended, Sony).
Where could they go wrong? The demos and release games are not a good indication. Casual sports and party games have been done before. Nintendo has been milking motion controlled games for four years and have been doing so with every game series they have access to. Why try to compete with a company that is four years ahead of you and has a larger penetration than you in an area that you are unfamiliar and aren't trying to adapt or familiarize?
How to Invent the Airplane
Mankind never found a solution to flying that involved flapping wings or anything that really emulates a bird's method of flying; but they did create machines that demonstrate how THEY could best do it. Sony and Microsoft need to be sure that they are doing the same. They need to make motion controls something that appeals to their fan bases. Microsoft has to sell Kinect to 360 owners. Sony has to sell Move to Playstation 3 owners. A gamer who bought their console for Halo or God of War might have difficulty rationalizing paying $100 to play with a virtual pet or invite their family up to play a sports tech demo. The birdmen will have difficulty taking flight if they don't realize that they aren't birds, and they need to work on a solution for flying that's relevant to them.
Instead of being men trying to be birds, they need to be men doing what birds do, but in their own way. Sony and Microsoft need to realize that they are not Nintendo. They don't have a casual fan base. They have fan bases of hardcore gamers, and if they want those gamers to appreciate the new tech they've released, it has to appeal to those gamers. Creating additional expensive technology to start from scratch on a separate demographic might not be the best console mid-life strategy, but you can always count on your established fan base.
There's never been a generation of console that has attempted to add on to their systems as much as this generation. Can Microsoft and Sony succeed? Being funded by some of the richest companies in the world, and each sharing their history of failures, each can afford to take a chance. They could do very well. Sony made a good step in the right direction by patching the hit title
Heavy Rain to work with their new motion control system. However the reported issues are the same with those of Nintendo's Wii; motion controls are difficult to master. Could these companies succeed where Nintendo failed to deliver?
It is certainly interesting to be a gamer right now - an abundance of quality titles, increasing media coverage, frequent and radical consoles and updates, healthy competition and inspiration for all the companies calling the shots. Can the companies master the inherent difficulties of motion controls? How will this affect those already in the market? The next few years will be telling, and in the end we'll see who manages to stay in the air.
The MS Kinect claims to be able to do just this, but implementation for every living room situation it could conceivably be used in is quite another matter; it's a very tall order.