Nolan Bushnell (pictured) is a casual guy. As the Atari founder likes to point out, his games were easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. And the controls for something like, I dunno, Pong? SIMPLE. Says Bushnell:
I think the Wii by Nintendo is getting games that once again are fun for people who don't want to make a career out of figuring out how to run a 47-button controller... I think that the business right now should be much, much bigger than it is. If it were evenly spread over all demographics and age groups, it'd be huge. But it's not. It's basically an 18 to 28 year-old male dominated business of about 15 million. That's where most of the traffic is. Casual games on the net add to that, but they're all network-based.
Wait, wait, wait. Back up, Bushnell! A 47-button controller? Oh man, would we love to see that! (Playing it, well, that's another matter.)
Bushnell Interview [Next-Gen]