CliffyB: Fewer buttons on next Xbox pad, please

via Computer and Video Games


Epic's Cliff Bleszinski has said that current control pads look like alien spaceships, and hopes the Microsoft's next Xbox will come with a pad with fewer buttons.

"I hope if there's a new Xbox that there'll be fewer buttons on the controller," he told us during a chat about Gears 2's multiplayer.

"This is purely me speculating in my own realm of game development, but if you look at a controller right now it looks like an alien spaceship," he added, going on to point at alternative methods of interaction.

"I think you could do things with a built-in camera or a little motion sensitivity. You look at the Wii controller with less buttons - they added functionality by doing waggle. Not a lot of games use the waggle well, but Super Mario Galaxy for example uses it perfectly. Zak and Wiki uses it rather well," he said.

"There are other ways of providing interactivity without having every single finger doing something at once on a friggin' controller."

So what should the hardware guys be doing in future, Cliff? "I've seen some prototype camera stuff that some friends are working on that can actually tell the depth of the world around the player, and can track individual finger movements and stuff like that. That's exciting stuff, and I think that's where it all needs to start going towards."

Look out for the full interview later today. In the meantime be sure to check out our hands-on impressions here, which also has new screens and in-game footage of Gears 2's multiplayer.