Game controllers are too complicated

Phil Harrison and Peter Molyneux have both agreed that game controllers are too complicated and put newcomers off, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

"You hand somebody a game controller and it's like you've handed them a live gun or a hand grenade with the pin taken out," said Harrison, soon to be former Sony Worldwide Studios boss.

We would have said it was like hot potatoes, Phil. But you carry on with your hand grenades.

Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux added: "We don't use half the buttons on the 360 controller, simply because the whole dream I've got is that someone will sit down to play Fable 2 who has never played a game before and they can play with someone who's played games the whole of their lives.

"I wish there wasn't so many buttons on the controller. You have to approach that in design terms by thinking you've only got one button."

Harrison went on to praise the Wiimote for being a "non-game centric device", and the iPhone for appealing to our natural instincts.

"I saw this first hand a few weeks ago where a two-year-old was playing with an iPhone and he knows how to get the pictures up of mum and dad," said Harrison.

"The two-year-old then intuitively thought that all electronic devices worked like that: he's pressing the TV to change channels."

"He's right and the rest of us are wrong - that should be applied universally. Apple should be applauded for that innovation," he added.