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Netflix CEO says Wiimote inspiring new TV remotes

by rawmeatcowboy
14 November 2008
GN 1.0 / 2.0

TV remotes are facing the same problems that game controllers are. There are way too many buttons crammed into such a small space. Just a few minutes ago, I was looking at the remote for my receiver, and I have no idea what more than half of the buttons do.

“Lots of people think that consumers are really hooked to their ‘left, right, up, down’ remote and I don’t think that’s true. The videogame generation is very comfortable with a pointer on the TV. And that’s what triggers the revolution. For those of you who lived through the revolution from the PC to the Mac, it was all about the pointer. Letting go of the tabbed keys and going to a mouse was an incredibly radical user interface design 20 years ago. A similar design revolution is to abandon the TV remote with its 54 buttons and go to a simple pointer to be able to control everything.” - CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings

Mr. Hastings went on to talk about how the Wiimote is definitely responsible for this new design idea in TV remotes, which we will see starting at next CES. Wiimote-like controls for your TV…I’ll take it!

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