More disruptive tech.. here Wii go

I had another experience with Disruptive Technology this weekend that I thought I would share. First a quick intro story, my wife decided that I spend too much time writing blogs and doing other work at night so she gave me a Nintendo DS to play Pokemon with my son. (We were playing the card version but that is all old school and passe now.) The people at Nintendo are GENIUSES... if you purchase the new Pokemon game for DS you have two options, Diamond or Pearl. The variant between the two is the likelihood that you will run into any particular type of Pokemon. So in order to get the best mix of Pokemon you need to trade with someone else... this is where I come in. I get one type, my son gets the other... GENIUS... now we buy two games.

It get's better though, and this is where the disruptive tech comes in. If you have a Wii (and if you live under a rock and have not heard of this you need to get out more or read) then the new version of Pokemon Battle Revolution for the Wii also allows you to trade back and forth your Pokemon with the Wii version. What a Wii bit of fun. (sorry, I had to, they will kick me out of the blogger's union if I don't hit my pun quota)

This brings me to my point (already). The interface for the Wii is entirely different than the existing interfaces for video games. This has, of course, hit the press and blog pages long ago but I thought it made a great point. The Wii does not support true HD, it's tiny and has no huge sizzle effect like the XBox 360... it's even cheaper and simpler than the other boxes and yet, it is rocking the video game world. Because it changed the interface rules. The Nintendo folk's thought differently and instead of focusing on ubber graphics and interaction view(the standard thought pattern of the day in games) they changed the interaction method. With your Wii wireless controller (it's all Wii small... there I think that's quota) you control standing in the middle of your living room. It's easy enough my 4 year old can play bowling and baseball, fun to watch in and of itself.

What can we learn from this? Don't be afraid to go another direction. Wii is having amazing success and corresponding sales (if you doubt this go try to find one in a store). This causes me to think about basic interfaces and the way our users interact with systems. Not just web versus green screen but form versus map and open search versus controlled UI. This is the gist of Web 2.0 and why the interfaces work. Kids who are growing up now don't think in forms, why would they? Their interfaces are things like iPhones and Wii.