Ubisoft explains how Just Dance came to be, doesn't think the series will die
Coming from Ubisoft's Xavier Poix...
“In the French studio, we’re used to embracing new technology quite early in the process. We have a long history with Nintendo. We were very lucky, two years previous to the launch of the Wii, to be able to get the first prototypes of the Wiimote. We started working in Paris here on a game for launch and, I brought the prototype to the team in Montpelier, where we were in the process of creating a new Rayman. Eventually we created Rabbids If I remember, we had a game where you needed to hit the Rabbid’s head based on the rhythm of a song… that was the first musical game we had.
We took another approach, the approach that Nintendo also took with tennis [in Wii Sports]. It wasn’t about exact controls. It was about feeling the movements. The idea in all of these games [in Rabbids] was to make sure that what the player wanted to do happened in the game as a consequence of the gesture - that you didn’t exactly have to do the gesture itself. There was a feeling that we should get rid of all this crap about being sure that what the player does is exactly what they get on the screen. We should liberate the feeling of moving. We eventually had a game in Rabbids TV based on dance - we could impose some gestures to do, and some moves. That was close to the final game that became Just Dance.
We realized that this game was totally disinhibiting everybody from the idea of a dance game. People dared to dance in front of a screen and in front of people. We realized that we could run the choreography live, and with some principles of repeating moves based on the rhythm, people could get the choreography really fast and keep on improving, session after session. Based on that first mini-game, with iteration after iteration, at some point we decided to go for a full game – based on fun multiplayer, of course.”
Mr. Poix also explained why Ubisoft believes the Just Dance brand will avoid the same fate that the Guitar Hero series saw.
“People have always said, ‘Look at Guitar Hero. Dance is going to die as well.’, but dance is universal. I don’t think that people will stop dancing. They’ll stop playing plastic guitars, because that was a new creation. We didn’t invent anything, we just made a game about dancing. Thanks to the universal nature of that experience, I think we couldn’t and we won’t die.”
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“In the French studio, we’re used to embracing new technology quite early in the process. We have a long history with Nintendo. We were very lucky, two years previous to the launch of the Wii, to be able to get the first prototypes of the Wiimote. We started working in Paris here on a game for launch and, I brought the prototype to the team in Montpelier, where we were in the process of creating a new Rayman. Eventually we created Rabbids If I remember, we had a game where you needed to hit the Rabbid’s head based on the rhythm of a song… that was the first musical game we had.
We took another approach, the approach that Nintendo also took with tennis [in Wii Sports]. It wasn’t about exact controls. It was about feeling the movements. The idea in all of these games [in Rabbids] was to make sure that what the player wanted to do happened in the game as a consequence of the gesture - that you didn’t exactly have to do the gesture itself. There was a feeling that we should get rid of all this crap about being sure that what the player does is exactly what they get on the screen. We should liberate the feeling of moving. We eventually had a game in Rabbids TV based on dance - we could impose some gestures to do, and some moves. That was close to the final game that became Just Dance.
We realized that this game was totally disinhibiting everybody from the idea of a dance game. People dared to dance in front of a screen and in front of people. We realized that we could run the choreography live, and with some principles of repeating moves based on the rhythm, people could get the choreography really fast and keep on improving, session after session. Based on that first mini-game, with iteration after iteration, at some point we decided to go for a full game – based on fun multiplayer, of course.”
Mr. Poix also explained why Ubisoft believes the Just Dance brand will avoid the same fate that the Guitar Hero series saw.
“People have always said, ‘Look at Guitar Hero. Dance is going to die as well.’, but dance is universal. I don’t think that people will stop dancing. They’ll stop playing plastic guitars, because that was a new creation. We didn’t invent anything, we just made a game about dancing. Thanks to the universal nature of that experience, I think we couldn’t and we won’t die.”
Link
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