Miyamoto Also Wanted Motion Control In A Nintendo DS

[wraggster]

Earlier today, we reported that Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata told a Japanese newspaper that a motion sensor in the successor to the DS would be "necessary." That reminded me of something Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto told me in 2004.

Just days before the official start of the E3 gaming trade show that year, Nintendo's chief game designer provided me a private demonstration of the then unreleased Nintendo DS. He introduced me to the system's dual screens, touch screen and microphone. And he told me the feature that Nintendo omitted.

As I wrote in The New York Times back then:

To keep costs down, Mr. Miyamoto said, some features were left out of the DS. Maybe next time, he said, he will be able to include a tilt sensor for gyroscopic control. For now, he is focused on double screens.

Nintendo had experimented with tilt controls previously, including a motion sensor in the cartridge for the Game Boy's 2000 game Kirby Tilt 'N Tumble. In 2004 Nintendo would release Wario Ware Twisted, a Game Boy Advance game with a cartridge containing a rotation sensor.

Iwata told the Asahi Shinbun this week that a DS successor would need motion detection: "[It will have] highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to read the movements of people playing."

Current Sony and Nintendo handhelds do not detect motion. The Apple iPhone does.

Just as some other long-discussed Nintendo projects such as Miis have come to fruition in recent years, now it seems that a motion-controlled Nintendo handheld may be upon us.

Kotaku has requested clarification on plans for a new motion-sensitive handheld and will update you if we find out more.

http://kotaku.com/5441793/miyamoto-also-wanted-motion-control-in-a-nintendo-ds

[Prans]

"Miyamoto Also Wanted Motion Control In A Nintendo DS"

We all want that!!! :D

[LDAsh]

I'm not so sure about this, I think the DS was a winner in many ways, with the touchscreen and SNES-like button layout. Motion control might be nifty as an _extra_, but not to go the way of the iPhone and completely do away with buttons, and attempt to make some portable Wii.

People look like idiots playing a Wii. Fun in your living room, but not something you'd really want to be doing on a subway in the middle of the night. It's like with the DS already, some of those games that tell you "Now, scream into the microphone like a moron!". That's okay, I can just rub the microphone cavity and get through it without attracting negative attention to myself, or thank heavens not every DS game is like that, or just not play it at all and put another cartridge in.

With motion control, however, the risk is that games will FORCE people to do these things, and as a handheld it would mean in public or somewhere a game player would warrant playing a handheld, like during public transport. Somewhere any normal regular person doesn't want to attract attention to themselves.

I think trying to make some portable Wii that will force people into bouncing around to play the game properly will be a really bad idea as a handheld. If it's going to have motion control, I hope it's optional (like tilt instead of left/right d-pad) and very low-key.

Nothing says "mug me" more than an idiot hopping and skipping down the alleyway because some Nintendo game is telling them to. I would never buy a handheld that I didn't feel comfortable operating in public, it would completely defeat the point.