And yet, the very paragraph right after what you quoted is utter rubbish:

"If Wii had been a Gamecube HD machine where everything could easily be ported, there would have been no window for small companies like HVS to rise through. This industry desperately needs new companies and new ideas. If Microsoft and Sony go the full motion control route, HVS could end up becoming the premier FPS shooting company due to their skills, not in high end graphics like how id or Epic did, but in high end controls. Viva la disruption."

Except that HVS did not bring new ideas to the table, and is trying to be the Id or Epic of the Wii: the graphic engine comes first, the first game is almost an afterthought and a showcase for the engine.

For all the talking about how good it is to have completely customizable controls -the only aspect in which one could say they've done anything different from say MP:C- that also sounds to me as a lack of proper game design. To all the people that think that being able to customize how fast you turn or how wide your bounding box in an FPS is a step forward, ask yourself when is the last time you played a platform and wished for a way to customize how much inertia your character had when turning around.

My answer is that it should be a choice of the game designers, and that the limitations imposed upon me, the player, by the controls are part of a game's identity.

The fact that we're used to customize controls in FPSs is only a legacy of the origins of the genre on the PC, where there's no standardized controllers and different mice/trackballs respond differently. On consoles, that doesn't need to happen and excessive customization can devolve into the game not having a proper feel to it.

Small companies can still rise on HD consoles if they're given the means to reach the public with their peculiar offer. Think Braid, World of Goo, Castle Crashers, so many quirky PSN and XBL games. Now that's where I see ideas, and I can't see why it would have not worked if the Wii had been a "Gamecube HD machine".

See I disagree, I would love for more games to let me customize everything the way that would be most comfortable for me

Most of those quirky games you mentioned could be done on any system, might even be possible as free online flash games, but the games that a company like a dev like HVS wants to pursue would get lost in the shuffle on an HD system, just another FPS on those systems, but on the Wii with motion controls and IR pointer and relatively few FPS's HVS can really stand out from the crowd

A slider in SMG to select the inertia of Mario and another for his running speed? That might make the game more "comfortable" but it would not be the same game. Remapping buttons is one thing, but allowing changing the way the game controls entirely is just throwing arms up and saying "I won't bother defining the way this game plays, I'll let the players decide, so that if anyone complains I can always point to the customization". I work in user interfaces for a living, and in my field letting the user choose too much is a hint of a sloppy design phase. I think the same applies to games.

As to the quirky games, you missed the point. HVS standing out only because there are so few FPS games on the Wii is hardly rewarding "new ideas" as the article put it - and by saying "just another FPS" you're validating my opinion. Every small company can make themselves a name in a void, but that's not meritocracy, that's just scarcity of content.

A slider in SMG to select the inertia of Mario and another for his running speed? That might make the game more "comfortable" but it would not be the same game. Remapping buttons is one thing, but allowing changing the way the game controls entirely is just throwing arms up and saying "I won't bother defining the way this game plays, I'll let the players decide, so that if anyone complains I can always point to the customization". I work in user interfaces for a living, and in my field letting the user choose too much is a hint of a sloppy design phase. I think the same applies to games.

As to the quirky games, you missed the point. HVS standing out only because there are so few FPS games on the Wii is hardly rewarding "new ideas" as the article put it - and by saying "just another FPS" you're validating my opinion. Every small company can make themselves a name in a void, but that's not meritocracy, that's just scarcity of content.

Two things, first its not just because there isn't competition o nthe Wii, but beacuse motions and IR allow you to have superior controls that wouldn't work on dual analog, and with those superior controls also comes the ability to customize them.

Also if any company can make a name for themselves i nthe void, then why haven't other companies stepped into that void i nthe past three years, the fact is HVS was one of the few companies with the guts to do it, and that in itself is meritous.  If everyone else is a coward and you are not and step forward, even if you aren't the best, showing the courage is worthy of praise.

"with those superior controls also comes the ability to customize them"

Please, this is meaningless... as if preferences for bounding box size and turning speed couldn't be implemented equivalently on analog controls as sliders for acceleration curve at various ranges, turning speed, dead zone size.

Hardware aside, you have to understand that functionally IR pointing is completely equivalent to an analog stick: it's a virtual analog stick giving an X and an Y coordinate, bound by your TV screen. The amount of information it can send is exactly the same, and as such the way you elaborate it can be exactly the same. It's just more intuitive and physically easy to keep aiming in a given direction with a Wiimnote than keeping your right thumb perfectly still in a very small area of the analog stick range, thus the thumbsticks are usually mapped to deltas where the Wiimote IR pointing is mapped to a mix between position inside the bounding box and deltas outside it. A mouse on the other hand is a totally different device because it's not bound and always works in deltas.

I despise such customization with any controller hardware, and I've said the same things when the whole issue with the acceleration curve in KZ2's controls underlined how many gamers are fundamentally spoiled brats :)

As for the guts shown by HVS, that's not what the article was about. It explicitely said "new companies and new ideas" and went on to talk about the supposedly marvellous know-how they gained that will one day let them shine against big game developers that still havent produced games with motion control. That's what I found completely unsupported, that's what I talked about in my comments. New ideas and controls.

The big story about the Conduit is the company behind it. High Voltage Software is a very young company that apparently has more enthusiasm than capital.