The boss of Buzz! developer Relentless Software says he's flattered by the controller accompanying Microsoft's Scene It? Xbox 360 quiz game, which bears a remarkable resemblance to Buzz!'s own big-button peripheral.
"It would be easy for me to poke fun of the similarities, so I won't. What's interesting is that when we first talked about Buzz! people didn't understand why we wouldn't just use the PlayStation controller and saw little value in a bespoke peripheral", David Amor told CVG in the latest instalment in our Creative Minds series when queried about the Scene It? controller.
Quiz series Buzz! has become a multi-million selling franchise on the PS2 platform, and Microsoft is obviously hoping to nab some of the market share with Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action on Xbox 360.
Amor went on to say that since the success of Buzz!, the value of the bespoke controller has been recognised.
"...there are lots of subtle tricks we've learnt to use in the games that make them so playable - it looks very straightforward but you'd be surprised at the things that do and don't work", he explained.
"There's more to it than meets the eye. We've had to 'unlearn' a lot of lessons that are employed in more 'hardcore' games."
Our full interview with David Amor will be hitting the site later this afternoon.
Ummm... Sceneit! was an entertainment oreiented trivia board game that has been out for over 7 years now and has been updated yearly. The original came with buzzers that look almost just like the 360 ones. If anything, "Buzz" was probably influenced in someway by Sceneit.
Nothing for you to be flattered about, guys. This bares little resemblance to "Buzz" other then the controller.
Everyone get their ideas from someone else's work. Buzz obviously got the idea from elsewhere, proved how successful the genre is and drew in casuals. Now MS want some of the action it seems...
I bet Atari were p**sed when everyone started copying their home console idea....
Although Magnavox were in there a little earlier than even Atari you make a very good point.
This is why I can't help thinking motion control will take off whether we like it or not. It clearly shifts units and companies don't do things out of loyalty to their fanbase, they do things to make money. M$ are just trying to cash in on the Christmas family game market.
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