Think of your last holiday….did you put aside the camera in order to savour those special moments?  Or did you take numerous photographs to capture the memories?  When you returned home, how did those photos shape your memory of that holiday?

The reason I ask is because Behavioural Economics has recognised consistent differences between the way we report our experiences in the moment (such as whilst on holiday) and the way in which we subsequently recall our experiences (once we return from holiday). Daniel Khaneman, leading psychologist, calls these ‘two selves’ the ‘experiencing self’ and the ‘remembering self’ respectively. The distinction between the two selves has huge implications for consumer experience in areas such as service design and marketing.

Cast your mind back to November 2006 when Nintendo, with much furore, released the Nintendo Wii. Nothing like it had been seen before, a games console with a motion sensing controller. Fast forward four years and Microsoft have taken the motion sensing phenomenon one step further and developed Kinect (the controller-free gaming experience for Microsoft’s Xbox 360). With the gaming industry delivering new innovations to the user experience and interactions with video games, GfK is curious as to what the future gaming experience will look like and whether motion sensing or controller lead technologies will emerge as the dominant experiences of the future.