"The customer of [the Wii] has turned into something [of a] much broader audience. It is a disappointment," says Seux (pictured) in an interview translated from French via Google Translate. Seux, speaking to the blog Gamekult, also calls developing for the Wii "difficult" and goes on to say "for us, Capcom, the future is the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360."

It's likely we're hearing Seux's offhand opinion of the future, not official Capcom messaging here. Still, the words, coming from such a stalwart brand on Nintendo's platforms, are eyebrow raising.

It's clear Seux is frustrated. He points out sales of just 16,000 for Darkside Chronicles in the first three weeks of its release, compared to 140,000 for Resident Evil 4 on the Wii at release in in 2007. Seux's explanation for the disparity: the market has moved on.

One feels that there is a problem very clear on this style of game on the Wii, where gamers have obviously moved on. Resident Evil 4 on Wii worked well, but [it was released] when the market had nothing!

While Seux says the Wii is "still an important part of sales," he calls it "very much a family [console] with low attachment rates."

"This is the year of the emergence of so-called 'new console generation'," Seux concludes. "So for us, Capcom, the future is the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360."

Capcom: Less Wii After Darkside Chronicles Sells Only 16k [Spong]

BBC Radio profiled the efforts, lately highlighted in the game 221B, a movie adaptation of the recent Sherlock Holmes film. In it, players must interrogate witnesses and suspects to gain answers that advance the story.

"Rather than attempting to create an exhaustive list of possible questions and the appropriate response, the characters in the game are capable of making a 'fuzzy interpretation' of what is said to them," the BBC reports. "The intention is to remove the frustration, familiar to any who played the old text-based adventure games, of having to guess the right way of asking a question or giving an instruction."

Other games based on open-ended use of language, spoken or written, include Facade and, of course, Scribblenauts - and even Left 4 Dead. "Each of the characters has a set of voice samples which can trigger based on events, situations and other dialog lines," Rockstar's Alex Champandard said of L4D. "This results in completely emergent short conversations depending on the situation."

The BBC calls it one of "the last uncracked problems" in games design. It's a good read, especially for the humorous kicker paragraph.

AI Aims to Solve In-Game Chatter [BBC Radio]

This past week Kotaku put a comprehensive look into its crystal ball, breaking down what's ahead for the major platforms, while also looking at the agendas and priorities of games' top influencers and constituencies over the 365 days to come.

This is our equivalent of baseball's hot stove league, when the season's done but there's still fun in pulling up a chair to opine and speculate. Please rejoin us and your fellow readers in the following features and discussions of 2010, the year to come in games.

2010: The Year Of Better PSP Games?</
2010: The Year Of Better PlayStation 3 Games?
2010: The Year of Better Xbox 360 Games?
2010: The Year of Better PC Games?
2010: The Year Of Better Wii Games?
2010: The Year of Better Nintendo DS Games?

What Won't Be Coming To Video Gaming In 2010

You're A Gamer In 2010 ... What Will You Do?
You're A Game Developer in 2010...What Will You Do?
You Run A Big Game Publisher In 2010...What Will You Do?
You're A Video Game Retailer In 2010...What Will You Do?

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Dyack touted Ontario as a potential global leader in the games sector once the economy recovers, and rather pointedly mentioned the rarity of his own studio's lifespan and that it makes him a well-positioned survivor amidst the bloodbath. Said Dyack:

It's been really a rough year and a half for the industry as a whole. The number of layoffs in the industry has been staggering. As an external developer it's been tough. I actually don't know anyone who's older than us any more. There used to be four or five people I knew of but I feel right now that we're one of the last of the V8s. I've talked to a lot of people and I know a lot of people who have gone out of business.

Further:

What that means for us is we're really excited because we're going to be able to come out, and the industry is going to rebound and grow, and we'll be one of probably five companies in the world that has any serious business beyond ten years.

"Serious business beyond 10 years"? Is he talking about the development of Too Human?

Dyack: Developer Layoffs and Closures have been "Staggering" [GamesIndustry.biz]

As reported by Gamasutra's Chris Remo, Chris Hecker (formerly of Maxis, now an independent developer) addressed the International Game Developers Association's Leadership Forum in San Francisco this past week. In the following excerpt, Remo digests Hecker's remarks and their main point - that games remain fixated on narrow experiences, revenue, and the easy appeal of proven forms of presentation - especially the "power fantasy," with its attendant explosions and special effects.

"If we continue on our current path, we'll end up in the pop cultural ghetto where [comic books] are," Hecker said. "An alternative path is where film, books, and music ended up." Such media certainly have their low-brow offerings, but on the whole are "relatively bulletproof" as accepted forms of art, worth scholarship and refined criticism.

But even on four tests of popular culture acceptance - revenue, units sold, cultural impact and diversity of content - games succeed at only one, Hecker argues. Revenue. "We f—k it up on the other three," showing that the medium is still an infant next to its supposed peers.

Here, in the words of Hecker as reported by Remo, is the bigger picture of how games, before aspiring to the old-money legitimacy of the fine arts, can first avoid a cultural ghetto.

IGDA Forum: Asking 'Why' Will Keep Games Out Of The Ghetto, Says Hecker [Gamasutra, Nov. 13, 2009.]

Like literature, music, film, and other forms, games offer their own intrinsic element to add to culture. For games, it's interactivity. That uniqueness is necessary for a form to carve out its own cultural space, and it's what will allow games to occupy such a space if the gaming community doesn't wall it off.

But that means designers must strive to convey some kind of "why," and when they do, it will ideally be conveyed through interactivity, not just cutscenes. Linear "theme park ride" games, as Hecker calls them — recently, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, et al. — can be great fun, and we have become quite skilled at making them, but they also represent something of a creative red herring: "The part that speaks to the human condition is in the cutscenes, not in the interactivity."

Furthermore, while gamers are highly resistant to decreases in graphical fidelity, they seem on the whole unbothered by regressions in interactivity, hence the flourishing of the theme park ride approach. And since, for technical reasons, it's safer and cheaper to decrease interactivity as you increase realism, the latter may well continue to suffer.

The booming market of casual and social games, Hecker points out, has a different problem. "It's great to have a game to play while you're waiting for a bus," he said, "but they're not trying to say anything at all."

That leaves the broad category of "systems games," which are more intrinsically predicated on interactivity and player-driven choice. They contain the best candidates for creating unique, meaningful works in games, Hecker believes, but at the present moment, "these games aren't really saying anything either, because we don't know how to say things through interactivity, how an authorial voice works through a system."

There's no easy way out of this arguably slippery slope except for the dedication and intent of the people making the games. "I believe this is the big question for the next ten years of game design," Hecker said. "We have so many opportunities."

Mechanics and systems can be continually evolved, but designers would do well to keep the following questions in mind, he said: "What are you trying to say, and why?" and "And are you trying to say it with interactivity?"

"If you can answer those," Hecker concluded, "you're on the right track."

- Chris Remo

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

"We are very excited to see the uptake of UDK cross over the 50,000 mark in only one week, and we're looking forward to seeing amazing games and applications come out of it," said Mark Rein, the vice president of Epic Games.

Rein added Epic was "thrilled" to offer the kit to schools and students and that Unreal Engine 3 would be part of their education and training in games development.

GamesIndustry.biz reported that the training firm 3D Buzz, which has already made more than 100 Unreal Technology video tutorials, will release a free tutorial series specific to the UDK.

50,000 Grab Free Unreal SDK In One Week [GamesIndustry.biz]

Acton says Insomniac's community team took a look at the reviews of 47 top-notch games and found that while "there was a clear correlation between graphics scores in reviews and the final scores," there's no correlation between framerate and the graphics scores. In other words, good graphics make the game feel more fun to play, but whether it's 30 fps or 60 fps doesn't matter.

Take a look at his entire post; Acton gets into the studio's philosophy of what is and what isn't important, visually. And it's clear that 60 fps, despite the fact "one of the long-standing sacred cows here at Insomniac is framerate," is not going to be the holy grail of their development. In fact, it'll probably be 30 fps from now on.

How Much Does Framerate Matter? [Insomniac Games Blog]

In order to develop a title for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or even the PSP, developers have to piece together middleware applications for 3D content editing, audio, user interface, asset management, and more. God of War: Chains of Olympus developers Ready At Dawn are looking to make the whole process a little easier, integrating its own code-base with to tool providers works to create the Ready At Dawn Engine, "the only comprehensive and fully integrated console game development platform."

"At Ready At Dawn Studios, we are faced with the challenges of making a great game everyday," Didier Malenfant, president, Ready At Dawn Studios, said. "We are building something for developers who are tired of the challenges of PC engines shoe-horned into consoles, or trying to stitch together layers upon layers of middleware from multiple vendors. Our solution will be a complete game development platform that simply works."

The Ready At Dawn Engine supports PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PSP development, with the company offering tailored evaluations of each project's needs to ensure that developers get the most out of the package.

It should be amazingly useful to dev teams making the switch from PC to console, and it's great to see this sort of support from one developer to others. Nicely done, Ready At Dawn.

Sergei Gourski, developer of the iTunes App Store hit Fieldrunners, said PSP development is "definitely more serious business and not for casual non-developers." Not only is investment in a dev kit "a must," you must also set aside money for "getting ratings for your game.

"The costs of ratings such us ESRB is significantly more then we had realized."

Fieldrunners, notes Gamasutra, is $2.99 on the App Store where no rating is mandatory. It's $6,99 on the PlayStation Store, where its ESRB mark is pending. As Joystiq notes, such ratings can run $2,500.

That said, Richard Stenson of Solus Games still sees PSP Minis development more for its opportunities than its drawbacks. He's put out five titles for the App Store and ported one to the PSPgo. "All I know is five to seven years ago the idea of publishing a game I produced completely myself on two multi-million selling platforms and one of them carrying the name 'PlayStation' was only a pipe dream," Solus told Gamasutra.

Update: The ESRB's Eliot Mizrachi contacted Kotaku to correct the record regarding ESRB ratings and their cost for smaller games.

ESRB ratings are voluntary; there is no formal requirement instituted by ESRB that games carry our ratings. [Kotaku] also cited Joystiq which cited an incorrect forum post that states that game rating costs are $2,500. ESRB has a reduced fee of $800 for games that have development costs under $250,000, which would likely apply to virtually all PSP Minis.

Devs Size Up PSP Minis Development Vs. App Store Games [Gamsutra via VG247]

Assuming the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ratify the contracts, their terms will be in effect until March 30, 2011. Under the deals, SAG gets an immediate 3 percent raise in its scale rate. On top of that, in April, both SAG and AFTRA get a 2.5 percent raise.

Also of note: the real screamer roles - "vocally stressful" they're called under the new terms - will require a notification by employers to actors. The two sides must also work out a set of guidelines for such stressful work by the end of the current contract. Additionally, the contract creates an "atmospheric voices" class of work, which allows developers to hire a single voice actor to play numerous roles in a single recording session.

SAG, AFTRA Renegotiate Acting Contracts With Developers [Gamasutra]

Crispy Gamer's David Thomas went searching for who decided on the $60 standard and more or less found no one in the industry specifically responsible. Which defies logic, as someone or some thing had to be the first. But when the decision was made, it wasn't tackled from the front - i.e., Company X made Y game, its production and marketing costs were Z, and profit A on top of that gives us price B. Publishers pick a price point and then work backward to justify a game, and the $10 allows them to justify more.

But the influx of downloadable games at much lower price points raises a new question: Are video games on the whole overpriced? Or are they underpriced? And if no one forced the $60 question, why do gamers accept it? You may not like the answers.

The 60-Buck Dilemma [Crispy Gamer, Sept. 23, 2009.]

The same argument could be applied to the movies: Movie tickets have increased because special effects cost more and Brad Pitt earns more and, gee, those nice seats at the theaters cost more. Of course, the price tag reflects a focus on the kind of fun big budgets deliver; and bigger-is-better dominates the public imagination.

"Ultimately, what we collectively found was that we've modeled a hits-driven business, not unlike film; and the massive downside to that structure is that it marginalizes the art-house products — the more risky or out-of-the-box games," [says the Entertainment Consumer Association president Hal Halpin.] "But that's also our roots, where we've come from. Really compelling, fun and great games that didn't cost an arm and a leg to produce, or to buy."

In other words, Brad Pitt and Michael Bay sell tickets. Hollywood is about stars and explosions, and the economics of box-office ticket sales tend to revolve around those needs. In games, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves costs $60 because it cost millions to make. So Braid either needs to make the $60 argument or pick up and move into the Xbox Live Marketplace.

To [analyst Jesse] Divnich , videogame math means something a little different.

"Either one is overpriced or the other is underpriced — and because games that only offer 20 to 30 hours of gameplay still sell incredibly well, I'd argue the latter. Some games offer such a value that they are clearly underpriced."

"I've always felt that pricing in our industry was completely arbitrary. Since few have challenged these price points, they've become cemented as a standard in consumers' minds; and deviating from the standard can be met with serious recourse," says Divnich.

Drop the price on a game below $59.99 and it must mean the game's no good, or it's old, or it's on some second-rate system. Perrier doesn't cost more than gasoline per gallon because it springs from some fairy well, and BMW doesn't charge a premium over a similar Lexus model because of some alien tech discovered during the war. Both bottled water and premium sports cars cost a lot in part because the people that buy them expect them to cost a lot.

Translated into the game world, fans have pretty much drunk the pricing Kool-Aid and figure games cost what they cost.

"Because consumers are cemented on the $60 price point," says Divnich, "The only way publishers can deviate from the standard pricing is by offering peripheral-based products and over-the-top special editions (e.g., Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Rock Band). Which, I may add, have been tremendously successful."

That's right, Joe Gamer, it's entirely possible that games cost $60 because some executive, at some point, thought it would be funny to raise the average price of a game by $10 and no one complained. And we kept lining up at the game store with three twenties and a sock of loose change for sales tax.

- David Thomas

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

At an event Friday, Inafune asked attendees what they thought of the show, asking them to be candid with their opinions. Then he proffered this:

Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor, I said "Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished."

Inafune backtracked a bit, saying Capcom's upcoming releases exemplify "kick ass" Japanese product. Well, yes, except for those, Mr. Inafune.

Keiji Inafune Dumps on Tokyo Game Show 2009 [Destructoid, via VG247]

Tutorials common to the early days of PC gaming followed an expository model of learning that bordered on information overload, writes G. Christopher Williams at PopMatters. Williams was reminded of this when he played Hearts of Iron 3, a military/diplomacy simulation set in World War II. It gave a decidedly old-school tutorial, barraging him with instructions but at no point allowing any practice of them. Williams gave up in frustration.

Contrast that with the active learning model of many game tutorials, especially for console titles. Tutorial or early levels commonly take a player through the control and combo schemes, identifying them and then asking the player to repeat them in practice. But by itself, the same as exposition without practice, it too is not a perfect form of pedagogy, Williams says.

Active Learning: The Pedagogy of the Game Tutorial [PopMatters, Sept. 16, 2009.] I was reminded of the more traditional expository method of conveying information that game manuals used to provide gamers a few weeks ago when I tried booting up a copy of the World War II simulation, Hearts of Iron 3. Not only is Hearts of Iron 3 a game that is built in a retro style with pared down visuals of maps and charts rather than fancy battlefield graphics, but it depends on a retro style of tutorial. While an in-game tutorial exists for this political and military sim, the tutorial is presented as a series of lengthy texts overlaid over the user interface that explain how to build troops, a national economy, participate in diplomatic efforts, etc.

While my response to Hearts of Iron 3‘s pedantic approach might imply that us old fogeys should shut the hell up and join the rest of the world in the 21st century where games teach the player through the more effective pedagogy of active learning, one might consider that the value of active learning has been challenged as well. For example in a 2006 study, "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching", Paul A. Kirschner reviewed the shortfalls of a number of efforts to put active learning to work in practical settings. While not all of Kirschner's criticisms of active learning may be applicable to video game tutorials, some of them are interesting in regards to the problems that some games have in providing only "minimal guidance" when actively training players.

[...] Which I suppose is my point, that I am neither opposed to exposition or active learning, nor am I sold on either one as a proper pedagogy for video games. Quite honestly, I want a good and reasonable amount of both in my game tutorials as they each have there use in learning a game. However, don't overwhelm me with a novel length description of play before letting me try out a few basics. Likewise, don't assume that I already know enough or that I have used all of the skills available in a game enough before letting me sink rather than swim into action.

Oh, and for the love of all that is good, allow me the option to skip it altogether if I really, really want to. Everybody knows that school sucks.- G. Christopher Williams

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Keiji Inafune, of Capcom, sees Natal as a way to expand the means of control beyond the "limited interface," a standard controller. Tecmo's Keisuke Kikuchi sees Natal as a means to enable the feeling of super powers beyond what a gamer sees, such as the feeling of leaping up to the second story of a building. Masanori Takeuchi, of FromSoftware (Ninja Blade) is mindful that development must take place with the installation base in mind, "rather than to evolve gaming into something irrelevant to current gamers." Additionally, he believes "Natal will become very interesting, when combined with games that work with the players' emotions."

Seven videos in all follow. These are some of Japan's most eminent minds in video game development.

Keiji Inafune - Capcom

Yozo Sakagami - Namco Bandai

Keisuke Kikuchi - Tecmo

Kenichiro Imaizumi - Kojima Productions

Toshihiro Nagoshi - Sega

Masanori Takeuchi - FromSoftware

Naoki Maeda - Konami

(For context, you need to know that Nintendo-owned Retro Studios, with involvement from Nintendo Kyoto-based producer Kensuke Tanabe, developed and released Metroid Prime in 2002 as well as two sequels in 2004 and 2007. The original Prime is one of the best-reviewed video games of all time. All three games were re-released on a compilation disc called Metroid Prime Trilogy this past summer. Retro has released no other video games. I asked this question as part of an e-mail interview with the makers of the games. Most of the interview ran in this Metroid Prime Trilogy post.)

Kotaku: Metroid Prime: Trilogy is only the second release from Retro since 2004. More significantly, Retro has released just one new game in five years. Why is that? And when can people expect to hear more about whatever Retro has next?

Michael Kelbaugh, president of Retro Studios: "To be fair, there's been a number of releases from Retro Studios since 2004. Metroid Prime 2 was launched worldwide in 2004 and 2005. Metroid Prime 3 was launched in late 2007 in the U.S. and Europe, 2008 in Japan, and the current launch of Metroid Prime: Trilogy, worldwide in 2009. Efforts and resources involved supporting NTSC, PAL and Japanese launches are considerable. That's been a busy schedule and it's kept us very engaged."

Bryan Walker, Retro's senior director of development: "As Michael noted, we've actually had a number of high-profile releases over the past several years. However, we're very fortunate to be a Nintendo developer. As such, we're not forced to release a game prematurely just to make a quarterly report look better. Quality is the first and foremost consideration in everything we do. Of course, we work very hard, and efficiency is always a goal, but every effort is made to ensure our fans take home a game that can stand alongside Nintendo's very best.

"We're also a rather small team, by current industry standards. We tend to focus only on one project at a time. The Trilogy project was a bit unusual for us, in that we had just a handful of people focusing on that while the majority of the studio was getting our next project off the ground. We may in the future grow to tackle multiple projects simultaneously, but only if our standard of quality can be maintained."

Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe: "Actually, localization requires much more time and workforce than you can imagine… Especially for the Prime series, it took more than the usual process of localization, as we had very long texts and worked even on features or parameters. Considering those conditions, how much have we and Retro worked in these five years? Please let me calculate:

"We have worked on six versions: North American, European and Japanese versions of Prime 2 and 3 … two versions of Prime 1 and 2 for Wii, which were released only in Japan … and the North American and European versions of Trilogy. We have worked on 10 different versions! Along with them, we had also worked on a demo on Wii, which was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show. Now you have a different impression, don't you?

"And the new title of Retro is of course, under development. Hopefully we can address some information in the next year."

Retro's rate of output is not that different from that of some other top-tier studios that have specialized in first-person games. Since the 2004 release of Halo 2, Bungie Studios has released Halo 3 (2007) and Halo 3: ODST (2009) and is currently working on the 2010 Halo: Reach. Valve's Half-Life team has released Half-Life 2 (2004) and two expansions in 2006 and 2007, with a third expected no sooner than next year. Retro's pace puts it behind Bungie but a little ahead of Valve.

Some studios take a while, but until Retro puts out a game that gets panned, it will hard to quibble with their pace. And, if you do, be careful. Kensuke Tanabe appears to be ready to prove you wrong.

"We'll always be experimenting with new IP," Svensson replied, then he ticked off nine new IPs Capcom's rolled out for the current generation. "If you wanted to take a more liberal view of something like TvC, you could call it a new franchise for us, even if it isn't new IP (all characters have previously existed). and I'm sure some others I'm forgetting off the top of my head."

Whatever you think of them, I'd classify Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Bionic Commando the same way. We hadn't seen them in years.

"Naturally, we always need to be introducing new IP so that we have some percentage of them "stick" to become ongoing franchises. But it's always a balancing act both to keep fans happy and to manage risk."

It's good that Capcom listens to this, because many others don't. But if I were to pick a publisher that abused its existing IP and sequelized it gratuitously, Capcom wouldn't even make the top 5.

Yo Capcom, Why Not Go New? [Capcom-Unity via VG247]

The body, called the National Russian Association of Game Industry, will be created by October. There's also an All-Russian Conference on Game Industry taking place Oct. 27-29.

The announcement was made by Russia's Federal Agency for Management of Special Economic Zones, the State Academy of Innovations, and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Gamasutra notes that "Russia's game industry has historically been fairly insular, with a primary focus on PC titles." These moves are meant to broaden its profile within the global development community.

It's a sign of rather progressive support of the industry from one of its emerging markets. It's a shame we don't see more of it in the West.

Russia To Form National Game Body, First National Trade Conference [Gamasutra]

Right now, Gard (pictured above) says, the m.o. is to fire a bunch of people at the end of a project, but keep around a core team for future work on the IP. "[A]nd it's not really working out the way it should be," Gard said.

It seems like the industry wants to move to a more Hollywood model by bringing in experts for shorter periods of time and then leveraging their outsourcing, but also building small teams for projects.

But they haven't actually fully embraced that yet and I'm just wondering whether or not there's a way people will actually start doing that. The industry is still very stuck in its ways of building their internal teams.

Gard's consulting business - ding ding ding - could exploit that short-term need for experts, which is one reason he left Crystal Dynamics. Another, according to his remarks, is that he'd taken Tomb Raider about as far as he could, and he wasn't working much with Lara Croft anymore.

It's always difficult doing that but you can get stuck doing the same thing over and over, The only real way that I can really effect Lara Croft is to be in charge of a project. More and more as I was working at Crystal, especially on Underworld where I was just doing cinematic work, the reality is the control of the characters is in the hands of the creative directors and the publisher.

Gard: Time was right to leave Tomb Raider [GamesIndustry.Biz via GamerReports]

Pulsipher analogizes video games to chess. Not only do the masters play a great deal of it, they study it. When the game became too much work, Pulsipher gave it up.

I felt the same way when I lost momentum in Batman: Arkham Asylum. There was something I wasn't getting about the Bane fight, sure, and realizing I'd have to study, wait for a FAQ or just trial-and-error it for another hour was so unappealing I put the controller down. And more than that, I resented knowing that I was worse at, or poorly prepared for, a brawling game challenge that most gamers could tackle in their sleep.

In these excerpts, Pulsipher argues that game development should move in a direction of inclusive accommodation. That rather than build titles that are either/or, core or casual, innovations that manage one's state in a game would allow more skilled gamers the challenges and fulfillment they seek, while allowing players less invested in that to still experience the title and its story.

Are Games Too Much Like Work? [Gamasutra, Sept. 4, 2009.]

Movies that resemble video games are often panned by film critics, but recently the well-known critic Roger Ebert said, about the movie Terminator Salvation, "It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it." (He gave it three stars out of four, quite a bit better than the Metacritic average — this was not a criticism.)

Is a future of video games actually movies like this? Or can we enable video games to challenge those who like to be challenged, but accommodate those who just want to ride along?

This requires us to find some way to either remove the disadvantage of failure from the game, or make failure less likely.

[...] Games can do something like Photoshop and 3ds Max: Let a player hit the "undo" key (usually Control-Z) when he gets in trouble or fails, and go back a few actions, or a minute, or five minutes, whatever interval he chooses, to resume the game at a point before the failure.

Yes, it'll take a lot of computing power. Initially, the "constant undo" capability might extend back only to the second-newest save. Nonetheless, if a game can record a movie of everything that is happening, as some games can, a player should be able to, in effect, rewind that movie to where you want to restart. And we've removed some of the work.

"Undo" will help reduce the tedium of game playing, but doesn't do anything for the people who just aren't interested in being strongly challenged by a game. For them we need an "autopilot" mode — like Nintendo's upcoming Demo Play feature.

[...] So we remove work from games, we remove "failure" from games. The hardcore will be disgusted at such wimpiness, but we've been working toward this in video games for decades, why not finish what we started? After all, they're games, not tests of manhood (or womanhood).
- Lewis Pulsipher

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

If he seems familiar, Mikhailov, of SCEA's Research & Development unit, was part of the controller's original demonstration at E3. He explains the level of control the wand delivers, as opposed to the traditional control mappings of a dualshock, and why developers like what they've seen so far. Unlike an accelerometer "it gives a straightforward answer about where the device is," he says, thanks to the multicolored orb, which interacts with the PlayStation Eye.

Another fun fact: Mikhailov some trouble taking it through airport security when he flew to the U.K. to demo it there. Dude, just tell 'em it's a lightsaber, they'll let it through.

Motion Controller Update Part II: Interview with R&D – The Sequel {PlayStation.blog]