We are on the cusp of a new generation of video gaming hardware, with Nintendo delivering its new machine–the Wii U–this Fall. So why did Steven Jones and George Thiruvathukal just release a book, Codename Revolution, devoted to Nintendo’s 5-year-old Wii console? A lot can be learned about how gaming may evolve by looking backward, and the book examines several different facets of the Wii–from tech to design to user interface–and how they all contributed to the the cultural phenomenon that sprouted around the console. Here, Thiruvathukal and Jones tells more about their work and how it can be extended to the coming Wii U.
Fast Company: Tell us about the approach behind the book
Steven Jones: First of all, we wrote it specifically for the “Platform Studies” series, which was already defined in a general way as looking at the connections between material affordances and constraints of a platform and the cultural works that are produced for it. Looking at cultural influence from the point of view of programming code or design of games and that sort of thing. Steve Jobs used to say that the future of computing was that intersection between computing and the liberal arts.
George Thiruvathukal: He even had it during the unveiling of the iPad 1, where he had in the background the words digital and humanities.
Read the full article at Co.Create.