Nintendo Wii has shown the market force of a game system that succeeds in bringing in casual gamers. A new breed of gamers are being made that are just in for casual, social gaming. But Nintendo managed to do it without alienating its long time fan base. In a time when video games just get more and more complex it seems a lot of people are just plain intimidated by all those buttons and controls. Fret not casual gamefans, Microsoft hears your pain. At E3 2007 they put on display this new style of controller. Microsoft believes you'll want to play Scene It and other kinder, simpler video games like it with its new controller. The image of the Scene It controler is from Joystiq.com
Scene It is a popular trivia game for movie buffs that will be released for Xbox 360. Every copy of Scene It will include four of these funny looking controllers that appear to be just made for a Trivial Pursuit style game. You’ll likely be able to play all kinds of video – ports from various board games like Uno on these things. Yeah they’re goofy, looking like a smaller version of that old game Simon where you hit buttons in order in a game of Simon Says. But the controller is not terribly original.
The big red button in the middle is reminiscent of an older controller for PS2 called Buzz (picture below). Buzz was a trivia game in the vein of Scene It. One big red button followed with four colored buttons, how can you get lost? True to form for Microsoft, the highest praise you can get from the company is through imitation. And Microsoft is not shy about imitating the brilliantly simple controls from the Buzz controller for its new Scene It controller.
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About Wayde
Wayde’s super power is fixing electronics by smacking them. Fixing his way through college he repaired TVs - monitors, stereos and even a pinball machine. He was finally defeated by arch nemesis - Planned Obsolescence in issue #280 and now enjoys super-hero retirement as an editor and gadget blogger.