Harrison: non-gamers see controllers as live guns

Phil Harrison, outgoing exec at Sony's worldwide studios, and Peter Molyneux, boss of Microsoft's Lionhead studio, have both agreed that home console controllers are too complex and put new users off playing videogames.

"You hand somebody a game controller and it's like you've handed them a live gun or a hand grenade with the pin taken out," commented Harrison during GDC last week.

"We don't use half the buttons on the 360 controller,â admitted Molyneux, "simply because the whole dream I've got is that someone will sit down to play Fable 2 who has never played a game before and they can play with someone who's played games the whole of their lives.

"I wish there wasn't so many buttons on the controller. You have to approach that in design terms by thinking you've only got one button," he added.

Harrison praised Nintendo's Wiimote for being a "non-game centric device" which has bought an element of "democratisation" to controlling videogames. He was also impressed with Apple's iPhone for appealing to a user's natural instincts.

"I saw this first hand a few weeks ago where a two year old was playing with an iPhone and he knows how to get the pictures up of mum and dad. The two year-old then intuitively thought that all electronic devices worked like that," said Harrison. "He's pressing the TV to change channels."

"He's right and the rest of us are wrong — that should be applied universally. Apple should be applauded for that innovation," he added.