The Revolution

By now, most people know about the newly announced controller for the future Revolution console from Nintendo. To go over its features briefly, the basic design is that of a remotecontrol for a TV. It is meant to be hold like a remotecontrol and used similar to one. You basically have a d-pad, as seen on all Nintendo controllers all the way since the birth of the NES. Below it there is a big round (A) button, another returning feature. From here on out if gets a bit different. There is a [B] button on the controller, but its location is underneath the controller, similar to the [Z] button on the Nintendo 64 controller. On the top side there is both a (Start) and, a bit more sprucing (Select) makes a return after being absent on Nintendo controls for about 10 years. There is also a mysterious (Home) button in between them, and its use isn’t known, but a safe guess is that it has something to do with either Revolution OS, or that it can be used for online purposes. At the opposite end of the controller we also have a (a) and (b) button, and these buttons have also been referred to as (X) and (Y). Additionally, in the top right corner, there is a small power button that supposedly are meant to turn of the system, or for similar purposes. And in the bottom of the interface of the controller, there are 4 lights that can help you indicate what player you are playing as in a multiplayer game.

Now, this setup seems, and IS a bit strange. The idea seem to be that you can hold the controller as a remotecontrol for some games, or as a NES controller for, well... NES games. Revolution is supposed to be a virtual console where you can play NES, SNES, N64 and Game Cube Games. And this controller can handle those easily. and even so, there are ports for plugging in Game Cube controls into the Revolution hardware, and this would make it much easier to play games for N64 and Game Cube, and even SNES as the Game Cube controller resembles a SNES controller quite a lot.

This is not the full story however. As interesting as a remotecontrol can be, the use of it is quite limited after all, as you seem to be able to use two buttons at the same time, and only ONE button at the same time as the d-pad. To counter these possible limitations, there is a slot at the backside of the controller where you can plug in add-on attachments. The first add-on attachment, and only to have been revealed along with the revealing of the controller itself, is a joystick that looks like a Game Cube control stick. It can easily be hold in you left hand, while having the controller itself in your right. The attachment also has two shoulder buttons, named [Z1] and [Z2] for additional input. What other things that can be plugged in is not known, but many things could be possible and anything that might feel like it is missing from the original controller for a game can easily be countered by plugging.

Again, not really that revolutionary as similar things have been done before... But there is more. On the top of the controller there is a device that can make the Resolution hardware read exactly where the controller is in the room, how close to the TV it is and read it’s every movement and register them as input information. You probably get the idea of this feature directly. You can now interact with the game only by moving the input device around. You can point at the screen and move the controller to select things, or to aim in a FPS game for example. This means a few things. First of, we finally get a setup that can actually compete with the mouse and keyboard on a PC in FPS game on home consoles. There have been FPS games on home consoles even since 3D gaming begun, but even today, a controller of a home console cant compete with the standard PC input... until now. And it is not for the first time possible to actually play RTS games on a home system, something that have been to sluggish and hard with regular controllers. So finally we can probably se the first exclusive RTS games on home systems.

Additionally, the controller can also simulate a tool in certain sports. You can swing the controller as a baseball bat, golf club or a tennis racket. Or simply use it to swing your sword in a adventure game. Other things, like minigames about fishing, cooking and other activities can be preformed. The limitations and the possibilities are only limited by the game creators ideas and imagination.

It will probably be an issue of how we are supposed to control some games with this controller as it is so different form what we have seen so far. However, thinking in that way is probably the wrong way. It’s not a question of thinking “you can probably not do this anyone” and instead we should be thinking “how can I do this now”. Of course you won’t be able to play a fighting game like you used to, but there are probably loads of different ways to play them if you just try to adjust to the controller. And do we really need more games in the fighting genera? What about all the new genres you can create with this? Just thinking about it and you will realise how the boundaries can now be broken and we aren’t locked into the same set of genres anymore. Gaming is evolving, undergoing a revolution. And it was a bout time it happened and that someone had the guts to try to do something like this.

After all, the competitors are now using input devices, based on technology that are almost 10 years old. This is something new and fresh. And even so, you can plug in a Game Cube controller to the system and play games like normal. After all, Xbox 360 and Play Station 3 aren’t going to use controllers much different from this generation. Revolution will have the better of two worlds. The best of the old era of gaming, and also be the starting point for something new and exciting that is different from almost everything we have got to play and experience so far.

Are you going to join the revolution and explore the future? Or are you going to stay behind and live in the past?