So, Mr Gates has said in an interview that he thinks the motion sensitive controllers, famously paraded by Nintendo and now somewhat, *ahem* ‘flattered by imitation’ by Sony, won’t work in practice. One of his arguments is that “It’s tough because sometimes you move the controller, and you don’t [want] to fly into the ground. You just want to put the controller down”.
Correct me if I’m wrong Bill, but haven’t games had a ‘pause’ button for quite some time now? And that even if you put down an XBox controller in the middle of a game without hitting that button, you’re very likely not to do very well in the ensuing part of the game?
Another comment was “People aren’t that good at totally standing still. Even pilots actually sit in a chair when they do their flying. So there’s a lot to be learned about these controllers.”. How exactly is that relevant? I think he’s taking this rather literally and expecting a controller which mimics every single tiny motion, which is fine for flight sims and racing games (where you’re sitting down anyway, right Bill?), but for other games it’s much more about gesture than precise motion. I’m sat here wondering whether Bill has ever actually picked up a DS to realise just how much more natural fluid / gesture based control systems can be for many games.
What we shouldn’t forget is that this is the same guy who thought the Internet was a fad, who thought cramming in functionality was far more important than engineering in stability or security, and was confident about cracking the Japanese gaming market - twice. He’s hardly the oracle of all knowledge, people probably should look elsewhere for their visions of the future because Gates' track record on augury is not that impressive - although his ability to turn on a sixpence and thrown money at a problem when he realises he made a bad call is.