Nokia’s Chief Designer, Alastair Curtis, has just told us about the importance of “emotional feedback” in future devices, and quotes the Nintendo Wii as a major inspiration.

“I bought the Wii almost the day it came out. The emotional feedback is three or four times more emotionally engaging than PS3 or Xbox 360. The motion, the way you use it. How do you understand that? It’s what Nintendo has done. We’re starting to do that in the 6600 Fold. We have to do that more and more.”

He also fleshed out what he means by “emotional feedback” touching on a clear focus on delivering new Noks that are going to be more in tune with our “natural senses”:

“The mobile has changed dramatically over the last few years. It’s become a personal companion for most of us… It’s starting to become quite a critical part of you. Not because of the product, but it’s a means of carrying around your world. For example, using a phone, there’s a natural sense to turn the phone face down. It’s a simple insight to something that people are doing. You do it because when you’re with people you don’t want the phone to interrupt. Because you respect the people. How do you translate that into a meaningful insight? Well how about making it automatically switch into silent mode?”

Sure, current accelerometer tech has already enabled this, with apps such as FlipSilent, but it’s still blindingly obvious that Nokia is dead keen to ensure the most natural user interfaces and interactions, as found in the Wii, are going to become more and more commonplace in upcoming handsets.

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