This week was the Seattle Casual Connect conference (the conference formerly known as Casuality). Talking to organizers there was around 1300 attendees this year, up from around 900 last year. What that really meant for me was that there were a lot of …

I enjoyed reading your take on the E3 conference. I’m glad you picked up on the focus on casual games at Nintendo and Ubisoft. It’s important to note that while the core gamer is key to the industry, casual gamers will have at least as much influence in the types of games and ways the games are developed, played and shared.

The analysts are right: presently, casual games don’t make a lot of money, yet. But with the right tools casual games can revolutionize those15 to 20 minutes gamers spend to kill time. Customized online spaces and gamer-owned experiences/content will make casual games more than just playing solitare or, for that matter, the traditional MMO model. Much of the current casual game content can be found in several places online but it is the well executed integration of this kind of game experience with social networking behaviors that will drive substantial revenue growth for developers, distributors and sponsors in this corner of our industry. With these success factors at play, who knows, that time may jump from minutes to hours some day…

(Just so you know: I’m the head of ECD Systems, a game technology company; our new online portals are designed to marry the casual and online game experience with advanced social networks for gamers and developers).

Not true methinks… Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition is definitley not a casual game. Soon to be arriving is Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy and Tomb Radier… none of which are casual games either. I think the Wii has a healthy mix of everything and I’ll be playing mine for a while yet, thank you very much

Of course – way back then… you had the time to read the manual while the game loaded off cassette tape!

Unfortunately the casual perspective leads to games not having the depth, longeivity or immersive nature which hardcore gamers crave.

He has lent his Wii to my brother now but my PS3 is still keeping me entertained (Even if it is thru MP3 and Blu-ray capabilities)

As soon as the big hitters – namely Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, PES7, Tiger Woods 08, GTA iv – come out, the end of the Wii will be upon us. . .

The Wii Board is using Nintendo’s patented technology that knows exactly what you are doing with your body. With the Wii Mote interaction with games were with the whole arm. Now it is going to be with the whole body.

Imagine also combining the Wii Board with the Wii Mote and the Nunchuck, you will have interactive shooters where your whole body is controlling the charachter, skiing and surfing games, dozens of dancing games and more of the like.

The Wii Board actually knows how your body is moving instantly upon the way that you stand on it, and there is no way to cheat with that. This has nothing to do with the Dance revolution arcade peripheral, this knows your exact body’s center of gravity, thus the position you are in, at any given moment of the game. Combine it with the Wii Mote and you’ve got a tennis game or football.

I’m no huge Sony fan but I’ve heard this Wii-like controller fallacy from a few blogs now.