6 ms·

Sage advice from Peter Molyneux: "The bizarre thing is a huge amount of effort and time and money goes into researching the tech, like the Kinect tech and scan

by abalone 11y ago

Sage advice from Peter Molyneux: "The bizarre thing is a huge amount of effort and time and money goes into researching the tech, like the Kinect tech and scanning the bodies, and there's always this one line that hardware manufacturers - whether it be Microsoft or anyone else - say and that's 'we can't wait to see what happens when it gets into the hands of developers.' Now if Apple had said that when they introduced the iPhone, I don't think we'd ever end up with the iPhone! What really should happen is that they put a similar amount of money into researching just awesome real world applications that you'll really use and that work robustly and smoothly and delightfully. "They should spend as much money doing that rather than just on hardware tech and saying, 'Okay developers, we'll leave it to you.' If you look at the cases where technology has worked well - touch is one of those, and Wii Sports and motion control; Nintendo didn't introduce motion control until they had Wii Sports. You weren't just playing a few demos. I just hope that for the Holo stuff that they really choose an application and make that sing. That is what transforms a piece of tech from awe inspiring gadget that you try a few times and show off to friends into something that you use as part of your life, and that's really what we want technology to be. And that requires just an awesome amount of design to be put into the software, not just the hardware." Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-warns-microsoft-dont-overpromise-on-hololens http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-22-molyneux-wa... via http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneux http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/01/23/mololens-molyneu...

GuiA 11y ago
Yep. It's easy to wrap early stage research in shiny PR and highly polished videos. Shipping a compelling product that incorporates the tech in a meaningful way is orders of magnitude harder. Sadly, pushing the hip video is much easier and cheaper than building the products, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Kind of the corporate version of this psychological phenomenon: https://sivers.org/zipit https://sivers.org/zipit
- SoftwareMaven 11y ago
  It's more than that. Finding a real-world, compelling, useful product based on a new technology is much harder than just developing the technology. This is, of course, obvious, because in both cases, you will have to develop the technology. For one, the project ends at that point; for the other, some of the most challenging work is just getting started. If you are responsible for developing a new technology, you can claim success if you release something that works as advertised, even if nobody actually uses it ("it was ahead of its time", "naysayers poisoned the market", etc.). Since there is no way to tell ahead of release whether it will succeed in the market, your project and, by extension, your position within the company creating it, are secure. Much, if not all, of the blame can be externalized. On the other hand, if your goal is to release a usable product, you've just massively increased your personal exposure. First, you have to become very opinionated because any product that tries to please everyone generally succeeds in pleasing nobody, so that means there will be people who hate it, often before it is even released. Second, it is usually possible to tell if a product is useful before it actually releases (if you aren't putting blinders on yourself), so you can find yourself in a position of failure before release, a failure that you cannot shift to anybody else. Part of the reason the iPhone succeeded was because the person who, ultimately, was leading the project was the CEO. He wasn't worried about what his boss thought, so the entire team could focus on the complete application. But that was only part. The other reason is that the product, the way the technology would be used, was part of a feedback loop that influenced the technology itself. The advantage of taking on all that risk of failure is that you end up with technology that is better, technology that is more suited for solving real problems.
bane 11y ago
This is why Glass failed IMHO. Google spent a bunch of time on the hardware, but just wiffed it with obvious demo software. Then they just put it out in the world "hey developers, figure out what to do with this, because we can't be bothered". Instead of a new computing paradigm, it turned into a very expensive head-mounted camera and not much else. Something GoPro had nailed at 1/10th the price point and without the creepy factor.
- devsquid 11y ago
  Glass was just a demo/research product, the tech isn't there yet to support something like Glass. Give it a few years.
- lbotos 11y ago
  I've also heard the idea of glass was about demoing AND getting the public conversation started about wearables so that when they have a product ready, the dialogue has been running.
  - bane 11y ago
    That's even worse! Now the dialog centers around creepy voyeurism. Google has single-handedly salted the market so nobody can enter it. It will take a decade at least before somebody tries again.
    - go1979 11y ago
      After the Glass fiasco, I'll be thinking twice before buying/taking Google's variant of FUD seriously. That was a waste of over 1.5K for me. Too bad there is no accountability (oh wait ... all the Google fans would just say I should have known it was unproven tech and I was an explorer .. blah blah blah). I haven't been dissuaded from buying all unproven tech gear thankfully! Preordered the Apple Watch (as I have had wonderful experiences with the iPad on launch day and the iPhone) ... very satisfied with it. I'm on the fence about HoloLens. While I have full faith in Apple and zero in Google, Microsoft is in the middle. The tech is extremely compelling but I Microsoft is known for incremental improvements .. I'd rather not get stuck with gen 1/demo hardware when a lot better stuff may be around the corner.
MAGZine 11y ago
I guess Molyneux is right in that no, Apple didn't do that--instead, they didn't say anything at all. The original iPhone had no app store, and no way of supporting external apps. Indeed, it was hackers and developers that took it and broke it into something that it was not. Of course, I was pretty young at the time, so this might not be an accurate recount of events (or I may be mis-interpreting Molyneux's central point), but I think that giving a blank canvas to developers to play with can be just as interesting, especially when entering a new space--you just need to be ready for some turmoil along with the surprising uses of the tech.
- abalone 11y ago
  His point is the original iPhone had its own polished apps out of the gate that demonstrated significant real world value: a much better touchscreen phone, iPod and mobile browser. They didn't just leave it up to 3rd party developers. That's not to say developers can't add to that baseline, which obviously they have in a major, major way with the iPhone. His point is you have to make it useful out of the gate.
frik 11y ago
Peter Molyneux is as always charming (similar to Steve Jobs) and wins the audience, and he used to have good game design visions. But Peter Molyneux is a shadow of his former self. Actually he was a studio head of a Microsoft Games studio Lionhead Studios and his studio had been sponsored by Microsoft to actually work on Kinect software prototypes known as "Project Milo" and with demonstrations at E3, at TED. At the end the project failed because the implementation was sub-par and they had to cut almost every feature that was in the original vision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo Peter Molyneux tanked his latest two game products in a big awful away - the community isn't happy at all: "Curiosity" and "Godus" are in a gray area that some may label as scam. he recently left 22Cans, the studio of his latest two projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux (little outdated info) , http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/Allgemein/3933/2149578/Allgemein-Peter_Molyneux_nicht_mehr_Geschaeftsfuehrer_bei_22cans.html http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/Allgemein/... , http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476895,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476895,00.asp , http://www.gamespot.com/articles/peter-molyneux-protege-quits-22cans/1100-6426755/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/peter-molyneux-protege-quit... , http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/28/peter-monlyneuxs-22cans-undergoing-reboot http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/28/peter-monlyneuxs-22ca... , http://www.gamespot.com/articles/curiosity-winner-once-promised-a-life-changing-pri/1100-6425241/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/curiosity-winner-once-promi... So maybe he begins a new era that resume his glory era of the 1990s Bullfrog games that one has in mind when one hear his name.
- Sven7 11y ago
  I don't see how all this unnecessary info takes anything away from the point he made.
  - frik 11y ago
    He was a Microsoft Games studio head, and could have made a difference. He could have made the software for Kinect that he spoke about. But "Project Milo" hasn't lived up the early visions. Microsoft invested a lot of money, so the first quoted sentence looks a bit different if you read the provided information.
Avshalom 11y ago
Meh. I mean the iPhone was argueably revolutionary in as much as it was the device that finally pushed consumers into smart phones but on the other hand we all knew what you did with a smart phone by then. We didn't really know what to do with the kinect (beyond ripping off Wii games). The Wii vs kinect is a bit disingenuous, the Wii was a whole new platform which needed launch titles of course Nintendo was going to have games ready. Kinect was 'just' a new peripheral.
frade33 11y ago
Any tech that is invented, and implanted on human beings, without studying the humans themselves. is bound to fail. Humans are smart mammals and they do appreciate anything that's smart, however they didn't come from a fancy space ship as google has established. they were born on the earth. that is full of colors, breeze, green fields. on a serious note, what happened to Google Glass?? regardless of downvotes, I am convinced that all these 'efforts' are solely aimed to stay relevant, Tech is changing at a pace that no one could have predicted. Even Apple is paranoid. Who had thought iphone 6+++?? I don't mean it's uncool. But just see how things are happening fast and quick. It's hard to catch up. Google has more failures in recent years than any other company, because either they were too late to the party or too early. i.e Google Plus / Google Glass etc etc. iPhone was not 'too early' it was just in time. that's why it was a major hit. Give me something that I would start using today(). If it's practical and useful it is gonna be hit. Else beyond the headlines it would only be biting the dust in the labs.... a privilege that until now, solely belonged to Microsoft
- dazzla 11y ago
  You need a lot of bad/unsuccessful ideas to find the good/successful ones.

by abalone 11y ago

GuiA 11y ago

Yep. It's easy to wrap early stage research in shiny PR and highly polished videos. Shipping a compelling product that incorporates the tech in a meaningful way is orders of magnitude harder. Sadly, pushing the hip video is much easier and cheaper than building the products, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Kind of the corporate version of this psychological phenomenon: https://sivers.org/zipit https://sivers.org/zipit

SoftwareMaven 11y ago
It's more than that. Finding a real-world, compelling, useful product based on a new technology is much harder than just developing the technology. This is, of course, obvious, because in both cases, you will have to develop the technology. For one, the project ends at that point; for the other, some of the most challenging work is just getting started. If you are responsible for developing a new technology, you can claim success if you release something that works as advertised, even if nobody actually uses it ("it was ahead of its time", "naysayers poisoned the market", etc.). Since there is no way to tell ahead of release whether it will succeed in the market, your project and, by extension, your position within the company creating it, are secure. Much, if not all, of the blame can be externalized. On the other hand, if your goal is to release a usable product, you've just massively increased your personal exposure. First, you have to become very opinionated because any product that tries to please everyone generally succeeds in pleasing nobody, so that means there will be people who hate it, often before it is even released. Second, it is usually possible to tell if a product is useful before it actually releases (if you aren't putting blinders on yourself), so you can find yourself in a position of failure before release, a failure that you cannot shift to anybody else. Part of the reason the iPhone succeeded was because the person who, ultimately, was leading the project was the CEO. He wasn't worried about what his boss thought, so the entire team could focus on the complete application. But that was only part. The other reason is that the product, the way the technology would be used, was part of a feedback loop that influenced the technology itself. The advantage of taking on all that risk of failure is that you end up with technology that is better, technology that is more suited for solving real problems.

bane 11y ago

This is why Glass failed IMHO. Google spent a bunch of time on the hardware, but just wiffed it with obvious demo software. Then they just put it out in the world "hey developers, figure out what to do with this, because we can't be bothered". Instead of a new computing paradigm, it turned into a very expensive head-mounted camera and not much else. Something GoPro had nailed at 1/10th the price point and without the creepy factor.

devsquid 11y ago
Glass was just a demo/research product, the tech isn't there yet to support something like Glass. Give it a few years.
lbotos 11y ago
I've also heard the idea of glass was about demoing AND getting the public conversation started about wearables so that when they have a product ready, the dialogue has been running.
- bane 11y ago
  That's even worse! Now the dialog centers around creepy voyeurism. Google has single-handedly salted the market so nobody can enter it. It will take a decade at least before somebody tries again.
  - go1979 11y ago
    After the Glass fiasco, I'll be thinking twice before buying/taking Google's variant of FUD seriously. That was a waste of over 1.5K for me. Too bad there is no accountability (oh wait ... all the Google fans would just say I should have known it was unproven tech and I was an explorer .. blah blah blah). I haven't been dissuaded from buying all unproven tech gear thankfully! Preordered the Apple Watch (as I have had wonderful experiences with the iPad on launch day and the iPhone) ... very satisfied with it. I'm on the fence about HoloLens. While I have full faith in Apple and zero in Google, Microsoft is in the middle. The tech is extremely compelling but I Microsoft is known for incremental improvements .. I'd rather not get stuck with gen 1/demo hardware when a lot better stuff may be around the corner.

MAGZine 11y ago

I guess Molyneux is right in that no, Apple didn't do that--instead, they didn't say anything at all. The original iPhone had no app store, and no way of supporting external apps. Indeed, it was hackers and developers that took it and broke it into something that it was not. Of course, I was pretty young at the time, so this might not be an accurate recount of events (or I may be mis-interpreting Molyneux's central point), but I think that giving a blank canvas to developers to play with can be just as interesting, especially when entering a new space--you just need to be ready for some turmoil along with the surprising uses of the tech.

abalone 11y ago
His point is the original iPhone had its own polished apps out of the gate that demonstrated significant real world value: a much better touchscreen phone, iPod and mobile browser. They didn't just leave it up to 3rd party developers. That's not to say developers can't add to that baseline, which obviously they have in a major, major way with the iPhone. His point is you have to make it useful out of the gate.

frik 11y ago

Peter Molyneux is as always charming (similar to Steve Jobs) and wins the audience, and he used to have good game design visions. But Peter Molyneux is a shadow of his former self. Actually he was a studio head of a Microsoft Games studio Lionhead Studios and his studio had been sponsored by Microsoft to actually work on Kinect software prototypes known as "Project Milo" and with demonstrations at E3, at TED. At the end the project failed because the implementation was sub-par and they had to cut almost every feature that was in the original vision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo Peter Molyneux tanked his latest two game products in a big awful away - the community isn't happy at all: "Curiosity" and "Godus" are in a gray area that some may label as scam. he recently left 22Cans, the studio of his latest two projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux (little outdated info) , http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/Allgemein/3933/2149578/Allgemein-Peter_Molyneux_nicht_mehr_Geschaeftsfuehrer_bei_22cans.html http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfonews/Allgemein/... , http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476895,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476895,00.asp , http://www.gamespot.com/articles/peter-molyneux-protege-quits-22cans/1100-6426755/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/peter-molyneux-protege-quit... , http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/28/peter-monlyneuxs-22cans-undergoing-reboot http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/28/peter-monlyneuxs-22ca... , http://www.gamespot.com/articles/curiosity-winner-once-promised-a-life-changing-pri/1100-6425241/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/curiosity-winner-once-promi... So maybe he begins a new era that resume his glory era of the 1990s Bullfrog games that one has in mind when one hear his name.

Sven7 11y ago
I don't see how all this unnecessary info takes anything away from the point he made.
- frik 11y ago
  He was a Microsoft Games studio head, and could have made a difference. He could have made the software for Kinect that he spoke about. But "Project Milo" hasn't lived up the early visions. Microsoft invested a lot of money, so the first quoted sentence looks a bit different if you read the provided information.

Avshalom 11y ago

Meh. I mean the iPhone was argueably revolutionary in as much as it was the device that finally pushed consumers into smart phones but on the other hand we all knew what you did with a smart phone by then. We didn't really know what to do with the kinect (beyond ripping off Wii games). The Wii vs kinect is a bit disingenuous, the Wii was a whole new platform which needed launch titles of course Nintendo was going to have games ready. Kinect was 'just' a new peripheral.

frade33 11y ago

Any tech that is invented, and implanted on human beings, without studying the humans themselves. is bound to fail. Humans are smart mammals and they do appreciate anything that's smart, however they didn't come from a fancy space ship as google has established. they were born on the earth. that is full of colors, breeze, green fields. on a serious note, what happened to Google Glass?? regardless of downvotes, I am convinced that all these 'efforts' are solely aimed to stay relevant, Tech is changing at a pace that no one could have predicted. Even Apple is paranoid. Who had thought iphone 6+++?? I don't mean it's uncool. But just see how things are happening fast and quick. It's hard to catch up. Google has more failures in recent years than any other company, because either they were too late to the party or too early. i.e Google Plus / Google Glass etc etc. iPhone was not 'too early' it was just in time. that's why it was a major hit. Give me something that I would start using today(). If it's practical and useful it is gonna be hit. Else beyond the headlines it would only be biting the dust in the labs.... a privilege that until now, solely belonged to Microsoft

dazzla 11y ago
You need a lot of bad/unsuccessful ideas to find the good/successful ones.