Nolan Bushnell Praises Nintendo Revolution

Speaking at the Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference (DIEC) 2005 at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, alongside speakers such as Namco's Toru Iwatani and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has praised the Revolution controller and Nintendo’s attempts to attract more non-gamers to the market, according to a report by video game weblog Kotaku. Apparently referring solely to the installed user base of Nintendo home consoles, Bushnell complained that the 44 million gamers from 1982 had now shrunk to 18 million in the GameCube era. Bushnell, who was voted into the Sony Metreon's 'Walk Of Game' alongside Shigeru Miyamoto in 2005, then suggested of these "Complexity lost the casual gamer" and that "Violence lost the woman gamer". Referring directly to the distinctive Revolution controller, Bushnell further commented that, "The 3D controller that Nintendo is on to is a very good idea. If you look at today’s controller with triangles, Xs, squares and circles, it’s scary. It’s like a keyboard. People are interface-phobic." Bushnell himself has only been tangentially involved in the consumer video game business since leaving Atari before the market crash of the ‘80s. From there, he went on to fund the Chuck E. Cheese game restaurant chain, and is now involved in new company uWink, which develops entertainment software for touch screen video game terminals, vending machines, handheld devices and kiosks. Bushnell's latest venture in the gaming space is a new pizzeria in Los Angeles called Media Bistro, which will feature a touch screen monitor on each table allowing visitors to place their order and communicate with fellow diners, with interaction between male and female diners being particuarly encouraged.