Two Great Links on Gaming
First, a roundtable discussion between the directors of Mass Effect, Rock Band and Bioshock, three extremely successful games of 2007 in three totally different spheres. It's fascinating to see that they have a very divergent approach to creating these wonderful experiences, and they often disagree on what to do.

Really, these games are representing 3 of the 4 core markets for the Xbox 360:
1) Hardcore gamers who want a complex, meaty, big-budget experience
2) Casual gamers who want to play games with their friends after a few beers
3) Mature gamers who want an intelligent, cinematic game and low difficulty
4) Teenagers with headsets and a copy of Halo (not represented in this article)

Second, a rant on a subject I've covered here before: how modern video games are WAY too confusing for newcomers. (Hence Nintendo's dominance: they have dialed back the Million Buttons to Spastic Hand-Waving.) Although N'Gai mentions one of the two big factors in having too many buttons (Street Fighter 2's six face buttons) he doesn't analyze whether competition was a force, whether bragging rights could attach to having more buttons or some new control gimmick.

For reference, the Xbox 360 controller has the following buttons:
0) Two analog sticks to control movement and position (necessary but ugly)
1) Xbox Guide button (again, necessary but ugly)
2) Two tiny menu buttons (the second one is useless)
4) Four obvious face buttons (mostly for backwards compatibility; most games get by with 2-3 necessary ones)
8) Two analog triggers (necessary; even your car has 2-3 of these)
10) Two shoulder buttons (elegant but NOT user-friendly)
12) Two buttons inside the analog sticks (awkward, counterintuitive and efficient, like a command line)
14) One tiny, hidden "reset wireless connection" button (useless; probably easier to code though)

That's two buttons we could cut right off the bat (Select and Y). A good start.