It's not quite as easy as it sounds.

2 Feb 07

Happy Groundhog Day. I want to talk about the Wii controls a bit. The Wii remote is really pretty complex. It does the basic screen pointing very accurately, but it also detects 3D motion including tilt and rotation. It's got a primary button, a trigger, a D pad, three control buttons and two auxiliary buttons. Yes, there's also a power button, but you can't do much with that. Add in the nunchuk and you've got an analog stick and two more buttons. Did I mention that the nunchuck has accelerometers as well?

In short, designing a game for Wii controls will be more about paring down the control options rather than not having enough. Based on some of the tests I've done with Wii Sports and Warioware, each of the sensing options has a great deal of sensitivity. So not only will developers have to come up with simple and intuitive controls for games with these new options, but they'll have to tweak the sensitivity for each function to give the player the control they need while keeping them from fighting a twitchy control. In my mind that means lots of testing.

The strength of the Wii is its potential for simple, intuitive controls. I think there are going to be some major growing pains before we get there on most games. There will be too many designs shoehorned into Wii controls and too many attempts at 'realistic' control that will fall flat. None of this is a hardware issue. It's all about good design, implementation and testing. The risks will be worth it though. When the controls feel right, it plays like nothing else.

Jason