Move Over Innovation

Controllers for the new Playstation Move, 2010 (left) and Nintendo Wii, 2006 (right)

Five years ago, I wrote an essay referring to the lack of innovation in the videogame industry. Publishers cared little about making new games with untested ideas, but instead focused on what made the highest profit. Of course businesses need profit to sustain themselves, but I argued that companies opted to sustain themselves by using the same formulas from past successful franchises and styles instead of creating new characters or series. I did not claim that innovation within the industry was entirely dead, but rather innovation was either hidden behind brand name characters that could be sold to customers or progressing slowly in a barrage of never-ending sequels. This may be comforting to the casual gamer, with titles and franchises he or she may recognize, but the future of gaming would fail to truly progress if publishers were afraid to take a chance to try some bold new ideas. A few years after I wrote this paper, Nintendo needed to take that chance.

The Nintendo 64, released in 1996, failed to live up certain expectations. This was in large part thanks to Sony entering the gaming market and quickly taking the reigns as leader with the Playstation. Nintendo tried to strengthen its position with the Nintendo Gamecube release in 2001, but quickly found itself at the bottom of a 3-way battle behind Sony’s Playstation 2 and Microsoft with the new Xbox. Sony and Microsoft were bigger companies with more financial backing than Nintendo ever had to compete with before, and Nintendo had to make a way of its own if it hoped to survive. Enter the Nintendo Wii. (click for Wii commercial)

The Nintendo Wii never attempted to compete with the graphics or system power of the new Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. Instead, desperation led to innovation and they put casual gamers at the forefront with a graphically simpler system, but with a controller using new technology to read the gamer’s hand movement. Released with a package of sports titles in 2006, users got hooked on the idea of really swinging to hit a baseball, or pointing at the screen for shooting games. With the release of the add-on Wii Motion + (see video demo), gamers had a 1:1 ratio for real life to in-game movement. Nintendo, together with its Wii, rose above the competition, and revolutionized the gaming industry. And best of all Nintendo proved my thesis wrong that innovation had died in videogame, a thesis I had hoped would be disproven for years. Enter the Playstation Move. (click for video demo).

Sony needed something to combat Nintendo's sudden resurgence. If Nintendo reinvented itself through the making of a brand new type of videogame experience, Sony would have to do them one better. However, Sony did not decide to try something new and untested, like Nintendo before them. Instead, Sony chose to mimic what had led Nintendo’s success and improve slightly upon it.

The Playstation Move is a brand new peripheral for the Playstation 3 that is very similar to the Nintendo Wii. Move involves a controller used to mimic users' movements and give a 1:1 ratio on screen, exactly like the Wii Motion+. Sure, the technology is different: Playstation opted to use a high quality camera to catch the player’s movement in a more precise way than the Wii, but the premise behind the controller and system is essentially the same. This leads to my new thesis:

Desperation breeds innovation. Success leads to a lack of need for innovation.

Gaming fans will continue to play and enjoy today’s games with their identical structure and continuous minor improvements upon one another. And some day, maybe Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo will once again be desperate enough to bring us something new and innovative again. Just don’t hold your breath.

aa.

 Also read "A Risky Business", my aforementioned essay from 2006.