Nintendo Revolution Controller and Information

Well, it's officially announced, revealed, whatever. And it's, well ... shocking. I have to say that this is instantly going to turn off a lot of people, who will not bother picking up the controller to experience the "revolution" for themselves, and just dismiss it as a simple remote.

I think that's a tragic miscalculation of the exact market that they're trying to reach. At the same time, they clearly want to make it accessible to the masses, and I'm not sure what is more inately understandable than a remote control at this point. The problem will be getting past the initial degree of underestimation that the mass market is likely going to have. Until you pick this up, you can't "see" what's so special about it.

Another concern is that Nintendo was absolutely right ... this technology is not new. It's been done before, in fact, I bet Microsoft is laughing themselves silly right now, because they had a tilt-sensitive Sidewinder controller years ago that sold miserably.

There is a key difference, though, and that's that the controller can sense in three dimensions (there's a couple of sensors that you place near the TV). The controller can move in all three dimensions, as well as being tilted. The applicaitons immediately come to mind ... waving the controller like a baton (Wind Waker), punching the screen for a boxing game, etc. Gamers are going to be having living room brawls with this thing, once they figure out that you could literally shove someone off the track in a racing game.

I got together with my friends from Planet GameCube to talk about the controller. For those of you that don't know, I've been "Rick Powers" at Planet GameCube for many years, and have the honor of having been the first person to discover the codename for what was to become the Nintendo GameCube (Dolphin). I've always been a Nintendo fan, even if working with their PR firm has been trying at times, and Nintendo's decisions seemed to come out of left field. As I've gotten older, I've started wondering if Nintendo really wanted my business any more. I've always owned each console, since I'm a game fan, but Nintendo was always my first love. My dad's former company used to print Nintendo Power when it first started, and I've toured the office numerous times. I know Nintendo always does their own thing, but it's been very difficult to admit to being a Nintendo fan lately.

Wow, got a little nostalgic there. Anyway, this is clearly going to be a big gamble for them, but I'm concerned that it's the final step in telling the old-school gamers, the ones that grew up with the company that they're no longer interested in them. Nintendo is trying to become so mainstream, it's like they're creating a whole new business. They're innovating for sure, but to what extent? Publishers will have a hard time embracing this console, when they can't simply port franchises from other systems to the machine. A lot of thought (and money) will have to go into it, and I fear that Revolution will soon become a one-publisher console.

That's not a terribly bad thing, because my favorite games are still Nintendo titles. My hope is that Nintendo is holding back something so amazing, that we'll see another leap in game play innovation, similar to what happened with Super Mario 64.