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.

You know I’m loving WorkSpace, but check out how they decided to show some love back. Today Bill and Dane quietly visited everyone while they worked away and brightened the afternoon with a sweet bit of appreciation.

A custom Moleskine notebook, with a short letter of thanks:

Moleskines are legendary, and I use them all the time, myself. This one I won’t be writing in because it’s a rare custom run of the books, embossed with the WorkSpace logo:

The point of this is pretty obvious. It doesn’t take a lot to tell people you appreciate them, but how you tell them should be in line with your style, and your clients’. Another premium play from WorkSpace.

We enter new eras not with ribbon cuttings and big parties, but by small steps that can pass by easily unless we look for them. Here’s an example of what’s going on as the worlds of digital content become more of a mainstay of our day to day lives:

From the Independent, an article about how insurers are starting to provide policies for loss of digital content.

This is great news for two reasons:
First is that traditional business is taking digital content more seriously and approaching it not as a problem, not as a fad, but a reality of modern life that has new service needs.

Second is that it marks the first time I’ve ever seen anyone take responsibility for protecting digital content. Most software licenses, and I’ll be writing more about those in the future, aggressively deny any warranty or right of reimbursement should you lose your digital content. The new insurance services being offered recognize the value of digital content to its holders (you and me) and says that business can not only put a value on that content, but can also offer some protection.

As digital content gains recognition from traditional business as something with legitimate, protected value, I think we’ll see digital content gain a more equal footing with tangible belongings in law. And that, I hope, will put pressure on software licensors to be more realistic and responsible in their license agreements.

We wouldn’t buy a house without an inspection and certification that it is safe and built properly; we wouldn’t allow cars to be sold that suddenly emptied their gas tanks onto the streets. There are laws to protect us from such things. Soon, we might also see laws that give more protection to the immense value we create on our hard drives.