Nolan Bushnell, the man behind the success of Pong and founder of Atari back in the 70's, has used his speech at the 2005 Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference to make a surprising point:he claims that the total gaming population (I presume in the U.S.) has shrank dramatically from 44 million in the 80's to 18 million today.
The 44 million includes casual and female gamers who Bushnell claims have been alienated away from the medium over the years, and he points to overly-complex interfaces like the PS2 controller as a reason for this, while saying Nintendo's new approach is a move back in the right direction:
“Complexity lost the casual gamer,” he says. “Violence lost the woman gamer.” He ventures into Nintendo territory, even slamming the PS2 controller.
“The 3D controller that Nintendo is on to is a very good idea,” he says. “If you look at today’s controller with triangles, Xs, squares and circles, it’s scary. It’s like a keyboard. People are interface phobic.”
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