Simple is good – when will camera makers learn that?
After stentorian efforts to actually buy one, our experience with the Wii game console from Nintendo is nothing short of a revelation.
You open the box, plug it in, disregard the 500 warning messages to keep scum tort lawyers in their place, and play. Wave the controller about and the player on the screen moves in sync. The graphics are simple, verging on crude, the big instruction book can be disregarded and the result is insane fun!
Now I have to add that I do not play video games. Our son does, now. The above paragraph should have been written by him, except he is just five and his typing needs work. Come to think of it, he can’t read either. But just ask him if he enjoys his Wii.
Nintendo, like Apple, Thinks Different. Where Sony and Microsoft make game consoles of increasing complexity, with their sleazy back door attempt at taking control of your home computing, Nintendo focused on just a few things – ease of use, price and fun. Result? The competition is scrambling to emulate Nintendo’s wireless controller with its built in accelerometers and speakers. It will take them a year. The results won’t be pretty, thanks to Nintendo’s patents. First three month sales of the Wii exceed those of any other game console ever made. The stock has doubled in the past year. Get my drift?
So unless Nintendo or Apple decide to make a camera (I wish!), there’s a huge opening here for manufacturers looking to make a profitable entry into the market. Scrap all those silly buttons, LCD screens, largely useless zoom lenses, slow response times and poor ergonomics. Make the lens fixed. Add an optical viewfinder. Give it just one button – the one you click to snap the picture. Abolish shutter lag. So far that’s all like the Box Brownie of one hundred years ago on which, believe me here, the patents have expired. Put in a big sensor to ban image noise. Make it wireless to upload pictures to your computer. And, like the Wii, sell it for $299. Or $199. Or $99.
Happy users and profits follow. What am I missing here?
Well as far as “happy users and profits follow” you couldn’t be more right.
I’m not sure however that the Brownie would sell without an LCD screen. If you look at the way most people (maybe not you and I, but who are we?) use their P&S cameras, part of their fun is to snap each other and show around the results on the screen: immediate sharing and gratification. Not many would give that up. True, screens are useless for serious editing out of bad shots (unless REALLY bad), and screens should not lead through a maze of menus. But screens are there to stay, I suppose. They’re the polaroids of old. Well, almost.
Have a nice week!