Nintendo Revolution Controller Revealed

[Powderkeg]

Good questions. I think the answer to both CAN be yes.

If you believe "yes" for the first question, you don't understand 3rd party developers.

They support sales, profits, and good exposure, but not controllers.

What good does it do to go all out to support a controller if doing so may put you into bankruptcy? Most smaller developers work on shoestring budgets as it is, can they really afford the gamble of supporting this heavily and losing the possibility of going multiplatform with their game? Only a great selling game would make it worth it to them, and how many great selling 3rd party games from small developers have you seen on the GCN?

Money is what rules all. You've got to be able to explain how this controller helps sales for it to get 3rd party support.

 

[gurgi]

It's so funny to watch people just not want this to work, and without even waiting to try it for themselves. This controller could be a lot of fun. The mere possibility of new types of gameplay ought to be exciting to anyone interested in videogames.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Good questions. I think the answer to both CAN be yes.

Sure, they both can be. But the question was if anybody actually believes the answer to both are yes.

Notice I wasn't concerned about discouraging third party support. But will this controller encourage third party support? Are developers, even small ones making small games as you said, going to look at this controller and all it's possibilities and become so enamored with it that they spend their developmental budget making a game specificly and solely for this input device?

On two, would Sony or MS copy this? I think the answer is absolutely, but exactly and IF it works as advertised. Do I think either would copy the one handed controller? no. But I think the tilt and motion detection of the controller could and probably will be copied.

Again, slight difference. First you admit that S and MS most likely won't copy the controller as it is, but maybe add some of it's features. Secondly, the question was do you think MS and S are scrambling around now? Your answer seems to indicate "No", that MS and S would only attempt a copy if this controller has proven to work and even then, they'd only copy certain features but the overall design.

So essentially, despite the fact you state that both answers "can" be yes, you expand on that reasoning by stating examples that are actuallly "NO" answers.

Third party support encouraged? Only if somebody goes on a limb and makes a blockbuster game: Answer, No.

MS and S scrambling to copy design? Only after this design has been proven and even then, they'd only mimic certain features rather than the actual design: Answer, No.

Now this is my just my hope, but I really hope, the reason that Zelda got delayed is so they could add support for this controller. Its a GameCube game, but maybe if you play it on the Revolution you can take advantage of the controller. How sweet would that be?

I'm all for "new stuff" I liked the NES pad better than the Atari Joystick, I liked the PS1 controller better than the NES pad, I like the Xbox (S) controller better than the Dualshock.

Those are just my personal preferences. But I see all those changes as evolutions of game control design. If this design takes hold it really would be more revolutionary than evolutionary, but I really see it as nothing more than a peripheral like a steering wheel, like a power glove, like VR glasses or kongo drums.

BTW: That photoshop of the controller having a steering attachment was really cool. That's the first thing so far that made me sit back and go "Huh? That'd be cool!"

 

[Squeak]

Did he, or is that just what you wanted to here?

I saw the keynote, and the translator (Iwata does not speak English) said that it MIGHT include "an accessory" but they never specified which accessory, and never guaranteed it would be included.

The translator said something to the effect of "we are planning on including this controller with the standard package" were the "planning" part is absolutely certain.
But for all we know it could be a mistranslation.
It would be very foolhardy not to include it as standard, as it would make more advanced games impossible or very complicated to control.

 

[swaaye]

When this is set up at Best Buy down the road, when people see others playing this with two odd controllers, one in each hand, I don't think many are going to go "OMG it's a VCR remote". Especially since playing it is going to require movement, and people will see this movement translate into movement on the screen. That will fascinate people for certain.

A lot of the talk in here displays just how closed box console gaming, and gaming in general, has become. Many make it sound like the ONLY game to play is the FPS. Uhh, huh, wha? I mean, step back and consider the possibilites. Many of you are trying figure out how this controller maps to a current controller. That's not how it's supposed to be. At least I hope not. It's not supposed to emulate what we use now. It's supposed to offer new ways of immersion into a game.

And, how is that bad exactly?

They are taking a step up from force feedback, analog control, shoulder buttons, etc I think. Oh, and those too were (I believe) first put onto consoles by Nintendo. And many back then questioned such additions too.

If gamers aren't adaptable enough to try out new ideas like this, well, I'm not sure what to say.

 

[KimB]

And as I said before, if you set the controller down on something (Or your hand holding the controller), you've lost the ability to lower it, or tilt it from front to back. It's going to suck if you can't move down because you put your arm in your lap.

Er, you're obviously not thinking right. Just make sure you're sitting so that your knees are about one foot apart, then you can rest your right arm on your right leg (or vice versa), and have full wrist motion. You're not setting the controller on something, you're setting your arm on something.

A joystick deadzone is about a millimeter in total size. You'll have to have a lot larger dead zone than that for this controller.

Not at the top of the joystick it's not. And no, you won't need a huge deadzone, because players will get instant feedback on motions that are too large, so people will learn to be more stable rather quickly.

Have you ever used a racing wheel with the deadzone set too high? You lose virtually all ability to make fine adjustments.

That would only be due to a bad implementation of the dead zone.

 

[Mordecaii]

I'm going to have to join the side of people more worried about the controller than excited about it. I think it'll be great for games made for it, but rather poor for games that are not. And let's face it, so many games are cross platform titles now, exclusives make up a smaller percentage of titles.

I'm definately excited about the different uses this controller can be put to. I'm just worried this is going to hurt Nintendo and I don't want to see them go away anytime soon, it's nice having 3 different choices for consoles and having the Nintendo franchises which always manage to be different than what Sony and MS give us. But I think this will cause some people who only want to get one console to shy away from Nintendo and choose another company which will cut into their sales.

 

[swaaye]

So I suppose we should just want all the console devels to just go with the flow then? Wow what a fun world that would be. Sequelitis on the hardware front. The most important thing being ease of development of crossplatform games....

I'll buy one just because they were willing to take a risk.

 

[gurgi]

Heh yeah, it would have been much better to have another spec warrior console with the same ported versions of EA shovelware.

 

[mckmas8808]

Look I simply don't understand how 3rd party support is going to be huge with this remote. I mean really the buttons of horribly placed for a lot of games. Someone said it here earlier. For Madden what if I want to throw the ball to the L1 character I have to twist my arm left. Honestly with holding the extra (or maybe included) analog remote and the main remote in the right hand will this feel better than the PS3 or X360 controller.


I mean people complained about the batarang concept controller the Sony showed saying that it look uncomfortable. This new controller should be a nightmare to those same type of people right. I mean what about game like NBA Street Vol3? You have to hold L1+L2+R1 to do a certain move right? How in the heck is that going to happen on the NR?

I don't think some people have truly thought about this stuff yet. 3rd party support was already weak for Nintendo, now this will only make it worst. 1st party will be a beast though so Nintendo will still make billions from the NR.

 

[Guden Oden]

Virtua Cop is a shooter on rails with wide leeway in aim. How is that going to translate into using a sniper rifle in a FPS to get a headshot?

Why don't we wait and see before bashing this thing into the ground?

Get real. After using a Logictech Pro racing wheel with force feedback, you think people want to use one of these?

I don't think most people will use a logitech force feedback wheel at all because those cost too damn much and are only compatible with a handful of games anyway. Vast majority of people play racers with the regular joypad controller, and those that absolutely demand force feedback wheels are probably not going to be satisfied with a console to play games on anyway. Personally I don't care for racers, but I'll not bash that which I don't have any experience of - or I won't in THIS case anyway, I'm still enough of a Nintendo-fan to not go knee-jerk spazo over the idea of a tiltable remote control-shaped controller, unlike a few certain others around here.

 

[gurgi]

Look I simply don't understand how 3rd party support is going to be huge with this remote.

So what? We already have 2 consoles that will have the same 3rd party titles ported to each other, what do game makers or players have to gain from a 3rd version of the same thing?

GCN had great 3rd party support at the beginning, but this generation suffered from severe port-itis. Why would consumers care about ports...especially when the Xbox usually had the best version? The result was dwindling 3rd party support.

If anything, the Revolution requires developers to do something different, and so the third party games that do show up will offer something unique to players. I think this will boost per game sales of 3rd party titles compared to the gamecube, and this could lead to more 3rd party games.

But lets ignore all that and assume that all we will get is first party nintendo games that utilize this neat new way to interact with software. How could that possibly be considered a *bad* thing by anyone that really enjoys games?

/boggle

 

[mckmas8808]

If anything, the Revolution requires developers to do something different, and so the third party games that do show up will offer something unique to players. I think this will boost per game sales of 3rd party titles compared to the gamecube, and this could lead to more 3rd party games.

Well you know that requires money and time. And going by past console sales the NR could now I said could have the lowest sales of the three. Explain why a company like EA, Activision, or Ubisoft should remake Madden, Tony Hawk, or Splinter Cell for a console that has the smallest fanbase. Why spend the extra money when games will cost more to produce on the PS3 and X360 and get sells.

And gurgi the remote is not a bad thing, just not something that Nintendo had to go with.

 

[gurgi]

Well you know that requires money and time. And going by past console sales the NR could now I said could have the lowest sales of the three. Explain why a company like EA, Activision, or Ubisoft should remake Madden, Tony Hawk, or Splinter Cell for a console that has the smallest fanbase. Why spend the extra money when games will cost more to produce on the PS3 and X360 and get sells.

And gurgi the remote is not a bad thing, just not something that Nintendo had to go with.

Why would EA make a golf game where you get to swing the golf club, or a madden where you get to throw the ball, ect? It's like a marketer's wet dream.

But like I said, you could ignore all 3rd party software, and the revolution is still nothing but a bonus for me. I always own all the consoles, so I don't need yet another machine that can play all the games I already own on playstation. I want something *different*. That's all I'm saying.

No, they didn't have to go this direction, but I think it was an inspired business move not to pour money into spec wars with the titans. There is a niche market, a multi-console market and they have shown they can grow thier own market with the DS and games like Nintendogs.

As long as they stay profitable enough to offer fun games, I am happy. I spend most of my gaming time on PC, and sometimes PS2, but I am glad there is a company out there like Nintendo.

 

[gkar1]

The question is not "can some people learn to love it" the question is "can Nintendo convince enough people to be happy with it to keep Revolution sales high enough to make a profit."

I have no doubt about the former, but I seriously question the latter. I think a major portion of people (Not internet forum geeks, but normal people) will dismiss it because it looks like a TV remote. Of those that try it, most who don't "get it" instantly will not buy one.

And as I pointed out before, I wouldn't count on very much 3rd party support for this. 3rd party developers had a hard enough time earning money off the GCN, they aren't going to be too thrilled by having to redesign their multiplatform titles to work with this new controller. That's a lot of extra work, and a lot of extra money they have to spend, and with Nintendo's history, they don't have a very high chance of making it back.

I would be willing to bet this controller is the primary reason RE5 was announced for the 360 and PS3, but not the Revolution.

The same thing was said about the original NES controller, when ATARI was using the antiquated 1 button joystick. "too many buttons", "it looks unconfortable", "whos gonna use all those buttons?"
And are you privy to the technical details of programming for the controller? For all we know the control mapping could be transparent to the programmer via the API

 

[Guden Oden]

I really wonder if Nintendo simply isn't trying to carve out a new, currently non-existing niche for itself, knowing it has been marginalized anyway over the past bunch of years and is now simply saying "screw this!" to mainstream 3rd-party support and is now dedicated to go its own way and see where it takes them. Perhaps what they're trying to do is bring more realism into games by making players interact more fully with the gaming; rather than push a button to swing your bat or toss your ball, you actually swing in real life. That does have a certain appeal, I can immediately see how this could be applied to a mecha type game for example.

Naturally, I expect Nintendo to ask those in the 3rd-party community that wants to follow them to do so, but I think that they really don't care all that much if few of them do, as it seems they designed Rev's controller even more out of their own needs and ideas than anything else compared to what they did with the GC pad - which was slightly odd even with the standards of those days with the weird button layout and clickable shoulder flippers.

It would seem that now Rev will boldly go (or go boldly, depending on which school of grammar you subscribe to) its own way, and Nintendo probably doesn't care all that much that it will be hard to port existing games from existing franchises in existing genres - they've tried to fight that way and have been losing slowly but surely. They probably feel the way forward for them is to invent new control schemes, new franchises, new input methods, not to try and desperately hang on to the old ones with multibutton/multistick joypads (something they pioneered for the most part might be added).

Now they probably want to innovate to find new customers that they couldn't attract by playing by the same rules as MS and sony. Perhaps they felt they did that with the DS and succeeded, and that that means they can succeed again with Rev's weirdo control system.

I really hope they succeed, and from having felt I probably wouldn't get the Rev because it looked to be underpowered compared to the competition, I've changed my mind and feel I probably won't care all that much about that, and want to see what crazy ideas can come out of this mad new controller...

 

[wco81]

This thing may or may not take off.

But maybe it will inspire someone to look at alternate control schemes.

What if you could put sensors to cover your limbs, torso and head so that each movement is translated faithfully on the screen in real time?

You could have truly unique batting styles in a baseball game and it would be a huge boon to dance games.

I don't know if mo-cap technology could be made cost-effective for mass production. Another possibility would be RFID sensors, maybe a dozen of them, so that you'd have something wireless and untethered.

If the Eye Toy can track the motion and translate it to CG in real-time rather than pump video and overlay it with crude graphics, that could be a good start.

 

[Mordecaii]

If Nintendo doesn't sell enough to make a profit and continue making games and hardware, then we as the consumer lose. It doesn't matter if they have the most incredible game in the world on their system if people don't buy it because it doesn't have the other games they want due to their controller driving away 3rd party support.

Gurgi, saying 3rd party support isn't important is a very flawed statement. Of course Nintendo will always have its outstanding 1st party games, but for those people who don't go out and buy more than one system it will be tough convincing them to buy a Revolution if it doesn't have as much developer support as the PS3 or XB360.

Try to look at it from a financial and general consumer point of view. That's what I'm concerned about. I love Nintendo and I've bought almost every one of their systems (not Virtual Boy), and I'm worried that this might drive away some game companies. This controller creates awesome possibilities (which we don't even know if they'll work yet so let's see how well things work in reality before we claim it's the best thing to happen to videogames in a while). If Nintendo doesn't make enough money to keep in business or to convince them they should keep making consoles, then we all lose. I'm glad Nintendo did something new with its controller, I just hope they didn't change it so much that it ends up scaring off more people than it intrigues.

 

[Guden Oden]

If the Eye Toy can track the motion and translate it to CG in real-time rather than pump video and overlay it with crude graphics, that could be a good start.

I've no doubt PS3 eyetoy could be awesome if properly implemented by sony and its software partners, but it'll still only be a peripheral. There will only be support in specific titles because either the devs didn't have time to implement it or doesn't like eyetoy or couldn't think up any way to use optical input in the game in a sensible manner, or didn't think it would be worth the bother considering the eyetoy might be expensive and not sell all that well etc etc.

Nintendo's crazy pad is standard and will be supported by EVERY Revolution game. That will be the critical difference.

 

[gurgi]

If Nintendo doesn't sell enough to make a profit and continue making games and hardware, then we as the consumer lose. It doesn't matter if they have the most incredible game in the world on their system if people don't buy it because it doesn't have the other games they want due to their controller driving away 3rd party support.

And you think the revolution controller means anything with regards to this? 3rd parties don't even make gamecube games anymore. Nintendo makes squat off licensing fees. It makes good money off first party software, mostly handheld. Worst case, they are no worse off than with the Gamecube, and have a really innovative interface. Best case, the whole idea really takes off. Sometimes consumers just go nuts for something.

Either way, they've said there are different shells for your remote to slide into so you can have a regular controller, and there are still the gamecube controller ports on it.

I don't see how this can be seen as anything but a win<->win for everyone. I was so ready to be dissapointed, but I actually really like the whole idea! =P