Revolution: The story of Wii

November 15th, 2012, 00:32 Posted By: wraggster

[h=2]Nintendo insiders speak: How Microsoft and Sony were a handshake away from thwarting the Wii, and how its motion controller was born on an airplane[/h]In 1998, a journalist for The New Yorker asked Bill Gates which of Microsoft's competitors he feared the most. "I fear someone in a garage who is devising something completely new," he replied.
Gates's belief was that there is no greater disruptive force than innovation. The biggest business rivals continually smash against each other in a war of attrition, but nothing has more potential to upend the entire system than a bold new invention.
Initially, before pitching to games firms, Tom Quinn first used gyroscope technology to control aircraftThree years later, just months after Gates handed control of his software empire to Steve Ballmer, one such unknown garage inventor was knocking on the company's door with an idea that would change videogames forever. Microsoft declined his offer.His name was Tom Quinn, a serial inventor based in California who, in certain obscure corners of the internet, is described as "the man who invented the Wii". That's not an accurate statement, of course, but it's not an entirely false one either.
In September 2001, Nintendo quietly bought a minority stake in Quinn's company, called Gyration. The reason was because the American entrepreneur had a worldwide patent on gyrometer-based motion control technology, and had researched the field for a number of years.
As part of the acquisition, Nintendo was granted licenses to use Quinn's motion control tech, as well as take advantage of his technological know-how. The business partnership, though momentous in retrospect, went largely unnoticed. Only one news outlet appears to have covered it.

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