Nintendo Revolution breaks the twenty-year reign of the traditional controller.
In a press release at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed that Nintendo had no intentions of following Sony and Microsoft's next generation consoles. They sure didn't, in fact they surprised us all by releasing the new one handed game controller that looks much like the remote control for your average television. Many thought they would come out with some type of virtual head set, or super cool hand held controller, or maybe a touch screen like the DS, but no one suspected a remote device that could detect its exact position in 3D space.
The new controller looks much like a remote, with a directional pad on the top. The "A" Button is in the line-of-fire under your thumb, and the "B" button is located under the device where your index finger rests. Start, select and home buttons are in the middle of the controller, along with two more buttons labeled "a" and "b" near the bottom. An expansion port at the bottom of the controller allows you to plug in a second device that has an analog stick and two buttons labeled "Z1" and "Z2". The idea of the smaller add on is to give the user the ability to play older games that use the standard controller, and provide more buttons for the newer ones. If you take the "remote controller" and flip it on it's side it works much like the first controllers of the NES and SNES, with the directional button under your left thumb and the smaller "a" and "b" keys under your right thumb. The controller is designed to be in one hand, and uses two small sensors placed near the TV that reads the infrared signals coming from the controller. Inside the controller is a chip that reads and pinpoints your exact movements in 3d space and re-lays that to the console. The maximum distance would be around 10 to 20 feet, and would run on batteries. In addition, Nintendo will offer a variety of colors such as red, lime green, white, gray, black and silver.
Let's say you are playing a game where you are fighting with a sword and shield. You would swing your sword with the larger controller and block with the left smaller controller. If you were playing an intense rock em' sock em' shooter you would be pointing at the target with the controller and firing with the "b" button. If you were more of a sportsman, you could use the controller to go fishing by casting with your controller or hitting the ball with a baseball bat by swinging it, or you could use it like a golf club. If you are interested in racing games, you move the controller left and right to steer, forward and backward to accelerate/decelerate, or bank the controller in any direction for flying simulators. The controller senses movement, depth of field, positioning, and targeting all based on the users position in 3D space. In a special session with a select few of the press, Shigeru Muyamoto, legendary game creator of Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Mario, had game demos that demonstrated the abilities of the new controller. Out of all the demos that I read about on 1up.com, the demos dubbed "Where's Waidosaur" and "Metroid Prime-Time" stood out as the most fascinating because of the new way the controller was used. In "Where's Waidosaur", the controller's depth of field function was used to find a particular monster out of a sea of monsters just like the game Where's Waldo. They simply moved the controller closer to the screen to zoom in and away from the screen to zoom out. They were also able to pan by moving the controller in left and right sweeping motions. The other demo, Metriod Prime-Time used the "nunchaku" form of the controller (the smaller controller attached to the remote style controller which looks a lot like a ninja's numchuck weapon) to aim, and move the camera, with the remote controller and steer with the attached analog stick. These new functions add a whole new era to the gaming world, where you are getting physically involved with the game instead of just button punching.
Square-Enix Director, Akitoshi Kawazu, mentioned in an interview that this would challenge game creators to think on how to best utilize this new controllers' strengths. In fact most of the Japanese game companies are excited about the new controllers' revolutionary way of adding more to the game. It will allow them to be more creative and not stuck to the tired interfaces that go with the original hand-held controllers. Mortal Kombat's Co-Creator Ed Boon has his doubts about the controllers use in fighting games because of its lack of buttons. Many gaming message boards also have mixed reactions on the new controller, some say that it will be the biggest thing since sliced bread, others say it will be a big flop. Most of the gamers are not concerned about the new features, or the controller, they want to know what kind of games are going to be offered with the new console and how they are going to react to the controller. Some are concerned that the controllers' popularity will be based solely on the way the game makers handle it, instead of the way it is meant to be handled. In other words, if a game maker fails to use the controller to its best potential, it might make some not want to use it because of it's over use or under use.
Either way, I think Nintendo has something going here. It's innovative, fresh, and it will give game makers a new way unleash their creative potential. However, this new creativity can be a good thing or a bad thing and might take some time to perfect. It is a risk that can either send Nintendo back to its spot as the “King of Games” or bring it lower than it has been.
Related links:
http://www.revolutionreport.com/articles/read/342
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Revolution
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782
http://www.nintendo.com/revolution
http://www.gameroobie.co.uk/art/2977
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