Sunday, September 18, 2005

Nintendo... Revolution controller

The article first appeared on 1up.com and has been linked everywhere. This picture is honestly to god the best one of the new controller. For anyone living under a rock the past few days... yes... this really is the controller.


Am I impressed? Hell yes. With all the secrecy surrounding the controller I was horribly worried we might wind up with a Nintendo Stink Bomb equivelant to the Virtual Boy.

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I was horribly worried we might wind up with a Nintendo Stink Bomb equivelant to the Virtual Boy.
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Nintendo wasn't kidding when they said it would be a simple controller. It is best decribed as a remote controller. Two face buttons, a D-pad, and a trigger on the bottom. Simplicity IMO is greater than the current trend of Xbox and PS3 to put more buttons in the hands of the gamer. The main function of the new controller is in the sensors placed on your TV set that determine location and motion of the controller. You can read the article for more details.

My feelings towards it are good. I am particulary curious to get this thing and its attachment for an FPS game. I'm actually looking forward to the next generation consoles now.

However, my concern is that change will scare developers away. This is a sad fact of the industry. The "suits" know that cool sells... and cool is the same ole washed up crap that we had during the last generation of consoles. We can only hope enough gamers like myself see through the crap and grab the revolution.

Ninetendo has sold at least one... to ME. Now vote with your wallet.

EDIT: Video for the controller has been released.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:58 PM

    Couldn't agree more. Whilst I haven't been a Nintendoer for a few years I'm certainly more impressed by Nintendo's approach to broadening the horizons of gaming than both Sony and Microsoft. I think the battle of the next gen consoles only goes to illustrate that Nintendo are ambitious enough to put their money where their mouth is and do something different. For the last few years I've been more interested in the greater functionality of PC's and the control only offered by a mouse for technical gaming. Within minutes of seeing and reading a few bits about this I could envisage its potential and that it could offer greater mobility than a mouse and a whole lot of fun. As an Englishman celebrating the win of the ashes I look forward to standing in my living room batting away at a pixelized Shane Warne with a Nintendo Revolution and controller in hand! So that's two units definitely sold!

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  2. Is it bad as an American I understand what winning the ashes means? :P Now do they actually make Cricket video games?

    Anyways... Nintendo has been about inovation forever... afterall they originally brought about the CD drive concept. Then Nintendo backstabbed Sony... and Sony put their money where their mouth is when they launched the original Playstation and we see where that went :P

    I honestly hope developers latch on and say FU PS3 and Xbox.

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  3. Anonymous2:15 PM

    Ok, Im in the dark on winning ashes but I have to agree with wanting the Revolution. I am very underwhelmed with the Xbox and PS next gen systems. Pretty pictures only do not a good console and thats all the innovation that I see with the other systems.

    Eric

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  4. What's up with repeating your Virtual Boy sentence?

    Anyway.

    All Nintendo needs is a few games that look fun to play and people are going to want a Revolution. I predict great success.

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  5. Anonymous5:00 PM

    Cool people would do well to read some Douglas Adams (regardless of the movie). This would help with the ashes reference.
    Anyhow, there shouldn't be any problems for this system:
    -It's backwards compatible
    -You'll be able to download old games
    -The innovation of the wand is going to get the power gamers
    -The simplicity of the wand will get passive gamers
    -The programmers will program for the wand
    -The cowardly programmers will not, but will still be able to create games in the same archetype they're comfortable with because the controller design is not mutually exclusive to such gameplay
    -Besides, the Wavebird will still be useable

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  6. "What's up with repeating your Virtual Boy sentence?"

    Its an attention getter... it sticks out and may draw someone into the article. Same effect a newspaper has with captioning a picture or bolding a quote in the middle of a story. I was getting bored of the drawling text pages I was producing and decided break ups were needed... whether its pictures, quotes, or whatever.

    And Valentine you missed this one...
    -The wand will get the NEW gamer... the market Nintendo is really going for. NEW gamers will be a lot more likely to try the revolution. Same as the DS has attracted many non-cliche gamers... especially the female gamer.

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  7. Haha... showed my roomate this article and he gave a great big WTF.

    He read the article and seems pretty excited to get it and try it.

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  8. Anonymous10:50 PM

    Maybe its just me, but I'm excited for left-handed folks. This thing looks completely ambidextrous. Some may say "who cares?" but I think it's a good step, even if it wasn't intentional. If my fingers start getting some early signs of repetitive stress injuries, I can just switch hands! Better all-around motor skills for anyone! Ok, maybe it's not so dramatic, but it is still a good thing.

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  9. Anonymous11:42 PM

    Wow, I was completly suprised by this contoller, I was expecting something with gyros. The way I see it the Revolution is gunna be a complete bust or Next-Gen God, personally I'm hoping for the latter. Nintendo has innovation out the eyeballs, I grew up playing NES and N64 and I want nintendo to live 'till the end of the video game era. Also I agree with a_nuh, we left-handers have it tough games are designed for the right-hand majority (also Inverted SUX). The cool thing is that I may be able to get my mom to play it, think of that Nintendo broadener of the games, Heck kthey might get a politician or two to play.
    ~Riunin

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  10. Look at the DS and the Nintendogs article I have up now on the front page of the blog.

    The Nintendo DS has brought a lot of non-gamers into the gamer market with fun to play games that aren't following the traditional game mold. New genres are being born... like Wario Ware Touched.

    It is a great time to be a gamer.

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  11. I concur. With the bigger-better-faster-more mentality of Sony and Microsoft, it’s nice to see Nintendo bringing something different to the table for the next generation. The Revolution controller opens up the door to some interesting possibilities, and I just hope Nintendo and some willing third-parties do all in their power to ensure that this innovation is both practical and fun in terms of game offerings.

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  12. Anonymous8:42 AM

    You shouldn't use the repeating in that way, you should place the quote somewhere else in the article so people start searching for it.

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  13. I know... just got lazy this time.

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