Full Revolution controller details finally revealed
[24/06/05 18:27]
Patent office registration blows the lid off top-secret control device
The controller for Nintendo's upcoming Revolution console will feature gyroscopic, tilt-sensitive technology, an LCD touch screen, and a greatly reduced number of face buttons, according to documentation on the US patent website.
The patent document - which calls the Revolution "the game device" and refers to the controller as a "housing held by a player" and "the handheld game device" - intricately describes key aspects of the controller's functionality.
The patent primarily focuses on the controller's gyroscopic ability, describing the function as, "a tilt sensor provided on the housing, a viewpoint coordinates determination mechanism for determining viewpoint coordinates in accordance with an output value of the tilt sensor."
Which is a needlessly complicated way of saying that tilting the controller affects on-screen action.
"The game system allows the player to feel as if the three-dimensional game space is tilted in accordance with a tilt of a game device, etc., with a minimal processing burden," the document clarifies.
Hidden beneath a wealth of nonsensical technical speak lay further details of interest, which describe the layout of the controller's face buttons and confirm the existence of an LCD screen on the device.
"The handheld game device includes a rectangular housing. The housing has the liquid crystal display," the document confirms.
The text then describes the number of buttons on the controller face revealing their position:
"A direction instruction switch [d-pad], a start switch, and a select switch are placed on the left side of the LCD, movement instruction switches (A button) and (B button) are placed on the right side of the LCD, and, if necessary, other movement instruction switches R and L are placed on the right and left ends of the upper side of the housing, respectively."
This confirms Nintendo's new controller features just a d-pad, with two face buttons, two shoulder buttons and start and select buttons. It would appear the tilting mechanism acts as a substitute for an analogue stick, removing the need for it altogether.
"The handheld game device includes a control circuit (for example, a CPU chip) having a CPU core," the document continues. "An LCD controller, a work RAM, a video RAM, and an interface circuit are connected to the CPU core via a bus (an address bus and a data bus."
"LCD controller" seemingly confirming the screen will indeed be a touch screen while the rest of the text indicates the controller has enough processing power of its own to run graphical routines and mini games on the LCD screen.
The controller will also accommodate a cartridge slot according to the document, "The handheld game device has a cartridge insertion slot formed in the upper side thereof for removably inserting the game cartridge."
This most likely a memory card device according to the patent document, which says, "A desired cartridge is connected to the connector as a preparation for starting a game. As a result, the player (user) is allowed to play his/her desired game by changing the cartridge." Which sort of describes the ability for different players to boot up their own save games from their own memory cartridges.
So there we have it. A controller with a reduced number of face buttons and a touch screen that allows gamers to look around, move, and affect their level of acceleration, by tilting the controller.
Now all we need are pictures. Which shouldn't be too long – the intricate descriptions in the patent document should be enough to ensure bedroom designers come up with a multitude of fakes sooner rather than later.
