Corvus Consulting

We hear that saying a lot, that less is more, but too often it comes across as just a saying, and as such is easily ignored. But now there’s a proof unfolding in the gaming market that will eventually become impossible to ignore or forget.

Just before Christmas, the stage was set for a battle royale between Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. The PS3 seemed set to steal the show, with more of everything: more processing power, more graphics, more storage. It even plays high-def dvds. The Wii is, by contrast, a technical toaster, with simpler graphics, lower storage, fewer games and less storage.

So which console has captured the imagination and dollars of the gaming public? Against every geek’s instincts, and according to the Google News for today, it’s the Wii.

What gives? People don’t go out looking for the option that offers them less. The answer is not on any spec list.

The Wii broke many rules of game consoles, and not just the idea that more power = better games. Instead, they incorporated wireless, gesture-based controllers, and a very strong social component for people in your living room over top of those you play with online. Things that work well with, you know, humans.

If you contrast the early advertising for PS3 and Wii you can see they are worlds apart. In the PS3 commercial, the console sits in a white room and quietly oozes a sinister and transformative black goo over everything. For the Wii, friendly people come to your house and playfully say that ‘Wii would like to play’, stirring up a household batch of exhausting fun before driving off into the sunset. Even in the ads the PS3’s M-O is to dominate, smother, overcome. The Wii just wants to fit in and play along.

What to buy: the thing that leaks cool freaky tar, or the cheerful and energetic cuteness? Do you want power, or fun? What would you buy? An engineer’s shopping list, or an experience that makes games more physical, more social, and less about how realistic a polygon-based universe can look and sound?

Sony bent over backwards to bring a technically fantastic product to market. They’ve bet their reputation as a leading consumer electronics company on the PS3, but sadly, the pursuit of more crushes the PS3 under its own weight. The Wii isn’t magic. It has silicon and plastic guts, and not pixie dust inside.

But the Wii focusses on having a good time, and removes barriers of cost for the consumer and for the game developers. That second part cannot be over-stated. That’s why it’s bold. In fact, it’s been said that game developers are not keen to work on PS3 games, as the costs of producing creative content that can fill its amazing capacity will push games to about $100. Per title. Ouch.

The Wii team kept simple ideas in mind about what people get out of playing games, and made that happen with far less as an experience, rather than with a killer feature list. It’s never the specific technologies that make great products. Instead, it’s the careful selection and combination of those technologies into a coherent experience that wins people over.