David Balogh

June 8th, 2007

A quick excerpt from a NY Times article about Nintendo being more open with other game software developers notes that playability may just have a better chance of winning in the end over the higher resolution counterparts. At some point this obsession with HD and detailed gaming experiences comes at huge costs, and in the end will hurt their sales more, and disappoint their consumers as well. Nintendo just gets it, and I think it proves that usability and simplicity can outweigh all those extras. (Hmmm, kinda like Apple vs. M$? Just puttin’ it out there…)

At Namco Bandai, Mr. Unozawa said PlayStation 3 was so complex, with its faster speeds and more advanced graphics, that it might take 100 programmers a year to create a single game, at a cost of about $10 million. Creating a game for Wii costs only a third as much and requires only a third as many writers, he said.

But Mr. Unozawa also said Nintendo’s promotional visit in late 2005 helped make Namco Bandai more willing to write games for Wii. When he saw the Wii prototype, and then later saw a PlayStation 3 prototype, he and his colleagues decided the Wii might have more potential than the expensive and difficult-to-operate Sony machine.

“The Wii just looked more fun,” Mr. Unozawa said. “It changed our thinking.”

Entry Filed under: Blog, Tech