Mark Cerny Explains How Knack Will Be User-Friendly

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton today, PlayStation 4’s lead architect Mark Cerny spoke of the challenges kids face when playing video games.

Thanks to CVG, we’ve seen that Cerny showed off an image of a DualShock 3 that was twice the size of the normal controller. The reason for doing this was to get a sense of how big the controller feels in the hands of children. Of course, Cerny’s other project that isn’t a console, is the expected launch title for PS4, Knack.

Cerny stated that kids of 90s grew up on handhelds with less complex button layouts and then warmed to the more extravagant console controllers. He then compared that to children of today:

“But these days young people are starting out on smartphones, and so we have this gulf between straightforward touch-screen gaming and hardcore triple-A titles.”

Knack is said to cater to gamers of all ages and is also said to be as user-friendly as possible. This mightn’t be music to the ears of those that are looking for more of a challenge in their platformers, but this might turn out to be a great entry point for the younger generation.