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Revolution In My Pants Revolution In My Pants
By Dingo
Madness, complete madness. B*B is always fashionably late to the party, but I had to write about Nintendo's Revolution controller be it sooner or later. This thing is absolutely wacky. For those who still somehow don't know, Nintendo's next-gen system, code-named Revolution (possible but probably won't be the final name), unveiled its controller at Tokyo Game Show about a month ago.

Essentially, it's a TV-remote-looking device that detects all directions/motions you can even think to apply to it. It will see itself moving closer/farther from the TV, it provides feedback when it rotates in any direction, and can obviously detect waving motions.

Speculation has gone wild in terms of more hands-on games, like sword fighting games where your real-life swings would actually translate to the in-game action, making for truly amazing and dynamic swordplay. It has its other uses as well, and could be used in dozens of simulators or minigames (fishing, golfing, vegetable chopping, you name it). As if the core controller itself wasn't enough, it will be capable of having attachments on it... one attachment shown at the Tokyo Game Show was the analog stick attachment, which was rather straightforward. You plug in the analog stick, attached to a wire, and you have one handle with an analog stick and a few more buttons in addition to the core "remote." Other attachments have been planned and supposedly being alienated won't be possible when Nintendo releases shells that actually emulate a normal controller.

Skepticism is abound, and with good reason. After all, how will one perform a full 360-degree turn in a first-person shooter without putting their back to the TV? Will we see some sort of next-gen Duck Hunt? How the heck will fighting games work? Supposedly, every single game that isn't a port to the Revolution will utilize the controller's technology, which is why these sorts of questions arise in the first place.

Other naysayers accuse this as being another Nintendo DS; the controller rarely being utilized except for silly minigame fluff while a normal controller shell would be used for the rest of the game. What really happens is anyone's guess, but everyone who's interested in gaming must at least be keeping their eyes on it.

B*B forumer Jay Esthar sounds off on the Revolution's controller, for better or for worse:

"The Japanese have done it again, combining the finer aspects of the video game controller with those of the television remote and 3 speed vibrator. I'll be completely honest, having been a Nintendork for a long time (this includes buying a GameCube despite poor 3rd party support, storing my Nintendo Power issue 50 in a secure place for 12 years, and just recently waiting hours in line to unsuccessfully meet Shigeru Miyamoto); However I must admit the new controller completely put me off to the Revolution. Half of what impacts my buying decision is the kinds of games and how many developers the system is able to garner. The other half is quite simply control scheme. It's what initially put me off to the X-box, and ironically, places X-Box 360 in the forerunning for my money with this next generation of consoles.

I haven't seen the trailers on how the controller is used. I agree that the controller might open up the market to new ideas and concepts, much like the analog stick and Mario 64 helped revolutionize gaming, but I also can't ignore the poor hardware designs Nintendo has come up with in the past. I'll keep my eye on the Revolution and give it time to develop, but with the price of the new systems I'm not willing to just go along with wacky concepts that have a big fat question mark as to how much support it could gain."

Others were asked for their commentary, but were lazy bastards. That's B*B for you.

So what will happen to Nintendo? Will it burst into flames (in a bad way) and cause pain and anguish to everyone who touches it, or will it rise above its two competitors because of its amazing innovations and gather people from all sides of gaming to it, flocking them around the glow of next-gen Mario? We unfortunately won't have the answer to that until Spring 2006, when the Revolution is expected to launch. From there on out, we can only speculate... and... well, touch ourselves. Because it's the closest thing to a shiny long controller shaft we'll be grasping until then.