HEAD BLOG

In 1983 I received a ZX Spectrum. The one my dad bought had 16k (smaller than this Word file) but could be upgraded to 48k by sending it off again.

I don’t remember why he did it this way but I remember having to be very patient around Christmas until the postman finally delivered the newly upgraded home computer.

Many people my age will have been through the same experience but what made my ZX Spectrum different to everyone else’s was the case it sat in whilst I learned the art of up, down, left, right, fire and the basics of Z80 assembler language.

The case was built by my dad and it was a beauty. It held the computer, the tape drive and had space for an armful of cassettes hidden by a lid as well as providing a neat solution for channelling the cables. It was even designed to raise the computer to a comfortable angle of 20 degrees; dad certainly was keen on me doing a fair bit of typing as well as playing games.

Twenty seven years later and a bunch of us are sat, surrounded by flat screen monitors, Apple Macs and games consoles, discussing the latest in user experiences as represented through video games. Everything around us has been designed and mass produced to fit everyone.

The ubiquity of product design is not lost on us as we consider what it is that makes for a user experience. At the heart of this is speculation over whether the new boys on the block (Microsoft and Sony) have any chance of challenging Nintendo on their home turf of motion control.

The thing about the Wii is that it was conceived and designed as a mass-market, motion controlled device. Every part of it from the way in which the Wii-motes were made to emulate an average TV remote, to the limited graphics and chunky option screens, was part of what made the Wii grandparent friendly.

It worked.

Beyond most people’s expectations, it worked.

The user experience that Microsoft and Sony now want to emulate wasn’t added on afterwards, it was built in.

So does that make it any more robust? Does it make it any more likely to succeed? Where does the user experience end and the gimmick begin?

I’m not sure you can discount bolt-on solutions to user experience. Buzz and Guitar Hero were essentially exactly that and they intensified the idea of mass market gaming. The Eye-Toy back on the PlayStation 2 felt like an idea needing a market but Nintendo certainly solved that with the Wii.

And that is, perhaps, where this issue becomes more complex. Nintendo defined their own audience by knowing what it wanted to achieve with motion controlling whereas Microsoft and Sony are “lumbered” with an existing audience who are all very vocal about what they expect from gaming. I remember arguing against the flood of moans regarding the Wii name. The existing gamer base was hostile towards the very idea of “soft” gaming, an approach I feel has been behind the perception of gaming as a pursuit for the less socially able amongst us. Will they view the new user experience in a positive light?

The two companies must certainly hope so because on the flip side of that coin is a public who may already be convinced that the 360 and PlayStation 3 are for the gamers, the stereotypical gamers locked in their bedrooms screaming about Red Dead Redemption.

In such a world, the task becomes how to convince both camps that the user experience is one worth buying into because not everyone has a dad who will make that experience feel personal.