The uploaded homemade photos started coming in right after Thanksgiving. Black eyes. Warped plasma screens. Wrecked windows. Two weeks earlier, people were peacefully waiting for the Nintendo Wii. News reports called the Wii crowd damn near angels compared to the drive-by shooting, mugging, eBay whoring Playstation 3 hooligans. Now reports were coming in that Nintendo lovers were destroying property, ney, destroying themselves with a white, half-pound plastic joystick. It’s like admitting assault with a margarine stick.
The previous generation, perhaps the same generation waiting in the cold Wii lines, used several excuses to promote video games back in the day. (After all, games weren’t viewed as productive, educational products like LeapFrog didn’t exist and many adults considered video games as unhealthy as television.) We would argue that the biggest was “Gaming improves my hand-eye coordination.” The Wii chaos shows that our parents were right – playing Galaga will not improve one’s hand-eye coordination – or that we ourselves are big, fat liars. Perhaps literally.
The twist most news reports left out is that physical video games aren’t new. While it is rare for a system launch to feature a motion-based accessory, surely to avoid the trap of being called “gimmicky” as Wii critics have as of late, companies have been trying to sell us on the physical interactivity hook for years.
One example is the U-Force. The Nintendo Entertainment System peripheral flipped open like a laptop. The two jet-black surfaces were sensitive to distance. For instance, you could technically play a boxing game by just swinging within the area the two surfaces covered. To quote a 1989 print ad via the ultimate source of all knowledge, Wikipedia: “Now you can feel the power without touching a thing. It’s U-FORCE from Broderbund – the first and only video game controller that, without touching anything, electronically sense your every move. And reacts. There’s nothing to hold, nothing to jump on, nothing to wear…” Take that, Wiimote! Unfortunately, Broderbund forgot to let everyone else in on the revolution (pun intended): virtually none of the Nintendo software actually could be played successfully with the U-Force and only one or two games were made specifically for the device. I remember the U-Force selling for about $80. Considering this was back when games were played mostly by children, the toy was well out of the average gamer’s price range, except for, perhaps, that spoiled little kid who lived down the street, the only kid, to my knowledge, who had Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari 2600 and the Atari 5200 at the same time. Unfortunately, Billy, or rather Billy’s parents, lacked discretion, and he would dredge up useless garbage along with his bounty like a crab fisherman netting his crop. Stupid peripherals would go to Billy’s house to die. Billy is my personal proof that the golden age wasn’t all gold.
The same year Mattel released the Power Glove. The heavy, plastic device slides onto your hand and takes over your forearm. A shitload of buttons sit on the trunk, but most actions can be done by moving fingers, creating fists and, of course, swinging. Unlike Broderbund, Mattel actually gave game developers a heads-up on what it was doing so compatible titles could be made. (It helped that the Power Glove translated the traditional NES joystick functions easier than the U-Force.) Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!!, Rampage and a handful of other titles supposedly worked with the peripheral. Mattel also released a “3D” Breakout/Arkanoid-inspired title and a Double Dragon clone called Bad Street Brawler. The latter featured a California guy wearing stunner shades and tight yellow biker shorts. Even a greedy ad exec would have had a hard time calling Bad Street Brawler “added value” to the Power Glove. The prohibitive price (also around $80), weak software and heavy weight had it in the bargain bins in no time, though it had a much more successful run than the U-Force, not to mention a better place in gamers’ memories. As recently as this year GameSpot editors pulled out the Power Glove in a retrospective show on video game peripherals. It took nearly two decades for nature to expose the biggest problem with the Power Glove and other non-cleanable electronics. “It smells,” one of the editors yelled. “I’m not putting my hand in that thing!”
The list goes on. Bandai’s Power Pad, also for the NES, was a precursor to today’s Dance Dance Revolution mats. The Sega Master System, the much-maligned console before the Sega Genesis, featured heavy 3D glasses not unlike the VR arcade titles of the ‘90s. Aside from cheaper technology, the Nintendo Wii is the first successful physical system because the company had decades of failure to look back on. The press can have a short memory, even gaming journalism, and thinking the Nintendo Wii idea is 100 percent new is akin to calling Halo the first real shooter.
What Nintendo alone has done, through a combination of timing, technology and savvy marketing, is bring physical gaming to the masses. The company has instituted a free strap replacement program for unwieldy controllers <http://www.nintendo.com
Just the other day an extended family member pulled me aside. Inspired by the Wii, he started talking about a more sensitive, more complex design that could better read player output and, in his estimation, give a more realistic gaming experience. It would require more sensors and more remotes. I snapped. “Man, we can’t give something like that to the general public. Can’t you see people are already getting hurt!”
-
Damon Brown writes about technology, sex and music, and is author of the Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Satellite Radio and the best-selling Pocket Idiot’s Guide to the iPod. Read his blog at www.damonbrown.net.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
