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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

The Evolution of the Revolution 43

Posted by Zonk from the fun-guessing-games dept.
Jane Pinckard, over at 1up, has a look at the evolution of the Nintendo Revolution controller...not that we have any real idea what the revolution will be. She takes a look at what we know to be untrue, and speculates on what might be. From the article: "One natural line of thinking, after eliminating the buttons and the D-pad, was that the controller would be touchable - not a far-fetched idea, since the DS uses a touch screen. What could be more intuitive than the power of touch? Throw in the microphone - another DS feature - and you have this model featured on the right; the creator kept the buttons and the analog stick, possibly to enable backwards compatibility. But the main interface of this controller concept is the spacious haptic touch screen."
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The Evolution of the Revolution More

The Evolution of the Revolution

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  • Evolution? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mensa Babe ( 675349 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @04:47PM (#13458776) Homepage Journal
    That controller has been intelligently designed.

  • Penny Arcade (Score:4, Funny)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @04:50PM (#13458812)
    Penny Arcade, as always, has something funny to say about this.

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-08- 29&res=l [penny-arcade.com]

  • Gestures and touch are not that far fetched (Score:3, Informative)

    by IIDX ( 873577 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @04:51PM (#13458815)
    I've been using a keyboard from Fingerworks http://www.fingerworks.com/ [fingerworks.com] (that now looks shut down), that has no actual keys on it. The included gestures are very easy to learn, and you can even make your own. Because of this, I don't see a d-pad less controller too far of a stretch, though extreme precision might be tough to achieve without lots of practice.

  • Cache (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seemed slow to me so here's NYUD cache:
    http://www.1up.com.nyud.net:8090/do/newsStory?cId= 3143314 [nyud.net]

    And my god, are some of those mockups ugly or what? Except the last one, of course.
    • OMG TEH UNICORN CONTROLLER!11!1 TEH PERFECT FOR PLAYING "BARBIE IN LOS ANG----" ...... err, I meant to say, uuh, unicorn controller is for wimps, yeah!

  • DS as controller. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @05:30PM (#13459136)
    Not only do I want the DS to be a controller, but also be an interface to games. Take an RTS or RPG that not only could you look at the action on the screen, but you could also get tactical info from the DS screens.

    I know that is information overload... ...but I'm geek like that.

    BTW from what I have seen so far, DS touch pad with a pen is a good substitute for a mouse (although not perfect, but it's really close).

  • Hard to live up to the hype (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Castar ( 67188 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @06:06PM (#13459371)
    The one thing Nintendo has to worry about most now is that their offering isn't going to be as cool as the fan-made controllers.

    In fact, it won't, if only because of the Nintendo ON virtual-reality video. Everyone _knows_ virtual reality isn't possible, but they'll still be disappointed when it doesn't happen.

    The worst thing would be if someone guessed close to the truth - people will look and say "Oh, that's neat, I guess, but we already thought and talked about it. And why doesn't it have X?". The best thing Nintendo could do is come up with something surprising enough that people forget it's not as cool as virtual reality.

    And, of course, it has to be weird enough to get major news sources to pick up on it, so Nintendo can fulfill their goal of attracting non-hardcore gamers. Even if it disappoints, if it's strange enough people will hear about the Revolution. "Game maker Nintendo revealed today that their vision of the future controller for video games is a dead cat on a string. Nintendo's system, which costs $4.99 and comes in 43 colors, can play all video games made between 1980 and 2000."

    It'll get people's attention, anyway.
    • I doubt they have much to worry about. Despite the efforts of some enthusiastic fans, Revolution is the least-hyped system on the horizon (even though it will likely be the most financially successful).
      So far Nintendo has promised that the controller will be something that people will want to pick up and play with. Frankly I don't think this will be a difficult promise to keep. Nintendo's controllers are always the most innovative and interesting in every generation. And it doesn't have to be weird. It just

    • Actually nintendo doesn't know what to do for the next controller.

      That's why all the hush hush about it. That way they wait until the fans create their mockup and then they steal the best ideas.

  • Um... (Score:4, Informative)

    by earthbound kid ( 859282 ) on Thursday September 01, 2005 @06:41PM (#13459600) Homepage
    Hasn't Nintendo stated multiple times that the Revolution won't use a DS-like controller? Besides, anyone who's played Wario Ware: Twisted knows they're going to do a gyroscope anyway.

  • The real question (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The assumption I am making, and I think most people are because it is a safe assumption, is that Nintendo's goal is to produce a better controler than is currently available. The fundamental question is how are they defining better.

    Now let's face it, each of the current consoles controllers are good for specific types of games and not so good for others; that is the PS2 controller is superior for most fighting games but the Gamecube controller is better for Adventure games (and whatnot). What I am wondering
  • I for one would like to see a controller with all the buttons on the back. Thumbs for joysticks, fingers for buttons. Seems logical to me.

    In this day and age of ten trillion first person shooters, a person needs to be able to work as many things at once as quickly as possible.
    • I don't think that would work at all. First, if you sit someone down to play a new game or a new system, the first thing they do is look at the buttons. They look at where they are and try to see what the do, and see what they are labeled. Having them where you can't see them would be completely non-intuitive.

      Second, from a usability standpoint, you would have to hold it with just enough pressure from just the right parts of your hand to keep it in your grip but not hit any buttons by accident. Sounds uncom
      • This is true, but it takes about ten minutes to learn a modern controller (assuming one has at least a little experience with games). Considering the lifespan of the average gaming system (five years), I think it's reasonable to slightly increase the learning curve for the sake of performance.

        I know it doesn't fit with Nintendo's business model to construct their controller with hardcore gamers in mind, but I think that the people who play games most would find such a configuration preferable to the classi
  • So far the best idea I've heard has also been one of the simplest: A somewhat regular controller with gyroscopic sensor s, or at least some form of movement and complete tilt detection. Then, using some kind of weights system, the controller can actually give feedback beyond just the current rumble. So it could make it feel more difficult to, say, turn left in a particular racing game, or pull up in a flight sim. I have no idea how feasible this is, but it seems doable and quite fun too. Wario Ware Twiste
  • One thing people have issues with on the Kameleon remotes and things like that is that touchscreens generally don't give any feedback to the touch. You can't see the buttons unless you use a backlight which eats up batteries. You have to physically look at the unit to see if you're touching the right button which is just plain annoying.

    Touchpads on laptops work well because there's no specificity to the touchpad itself, it's simply a pointing device, ie mouse. I'm not sure what the Nintendo people are

  • When was the last time you even SAW a haptic touchpad? And How in the world is nintendo going to make controllers with them for less than 100$?

    It's gonna be a basic design evolution of the 'Cube controller, with a gyroscope that breaks too easily.

  • I didn't hear that much FUD since the Segway came out. And look how disapointing that was...

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