Nintendo Revolution Controller Revealed

[gkar1]

It's been tried before with the powerglove. All of these "move your arm around" devices result in one thing: arm fatigue. Try getting one of those mice that you hold in your hand and wave your hand around and use it for a few hours. Then you'll realize how much you 'rest' your hands on your mouse. Next time you place on your console, think about how often you rest the controller between your leggs, or put your elbows on your thighs, etc.

This controller is the stupidest think I've seen in alot time, and the WIRE between the pieces of it are doubly stupid.

There are those who can recognize innovation and progress and those who dont. I'll simply leave it at that.
BTW: I guess the controller is not for people out of shape then
Oh and do you still go up to your tv to turn it on or change channels by pushing the buttons?

 

[DemoCoder]

Of jeebus, innovation and progress? You never used a gyro mouse? Did you ever use a powerglove?

Innovation would be a lightweight wireless pair of display glasses with silicon mesoscale gyroscopes to do head tracking. Or a force feedback haptic glove. But a bulky and boxy gyro mouse? It's the Powerglove and ROB The Robot of this generation. I swear, the people who think Nintendo can do no wrong are like the Apple zealots who brainlessly defend even the worst ideas (e.g. Mighty Mouse)

Try this experiment: Pick up a TV remote and pretend to play a first person shooter by waving it in the air for like 10 minutes, and then tell me that this controller is a great idea. It's a gimmick, a gimmick that will quickly turn into something that sits in a dusty drawer while you put standard controllers on your revolution. Few games will use it, maybe there will be a few mega hits like Nintendogs, that use the special interface, but the bulk of games won't.

First person shooters demand *precision* input, and anyone who has ever filmed with a handheld camcorder knows how precise steadying with your arm, especially one handed is. The reason why the mouse works so well in FPSes is its precision and acceleration. Waving your arm around can make the acceleration, but it won't make the precision.

I'm sorry, but the holy grail of FPS console controllers hasn't been invented yet. And oddly enough, this controller announcement seems like a dodge to divert attention once again from anything substantative about the Revolution hardware itself.

I'll give credit to Nintendo, they sure do take risks, but greatert than 50% of their "innovations" are flops IMHO. (Virtual Boy anyone?)

 

[Riptides]

they sure do take risks, but greatert than 50% of their "innovations" are flops IMHO

Such as the promise, back in the day, that they had a warehouse FULL of CD-ROM drives for the SNES already manufactured, tested, ready to go, and were just waiting on gaming companies to press the discs (content) before releasing them for sale.. Then months of.. nothing.. And finally they recanted and tried to convince the Gaming World that it just wasn't ready for games on CD, which.. well.. we know what happened there.. it rhymes with PONY Schlupping Sass on the Hin-Pickety-Floor.

Honestly, if i was still a kid, and I pulled such a device out of my christmas box, i would start swinging it around wildly at my younger siblings. A whole new generation is going to skip Nintendo Thumb and go straight to Nintendo Wrist.

 

[mckmas8808]

Seriously now. I watched the demo video and it was great. But lets be honest. 80% of the things that they were doing can be done using the next-gen eyetoy. I mean why can't it not? This kind of gaming looks very very fun. And I think a company like EA (yeah right ) should embrace it with their Fight Night 3 game.

Imigne the Nintendo one using the remote to fight, while the PS3 version could use the eyetoy to punch the player. That would be great.

 

[Ty]

Wow. Quite interesting and yes, very innovative imo.

Do have a couple of concerns (may have been voiced before).

This type of control is going to really tire out your arm because your hand will be much farther from the center of your body. Normal controllers can easily be cradled close to your body and require very little exertion to hold it up whereas just holding the revolution controller out from the center of your body will fatigue your arm quite rapidly. Add in the required motions and boy, talk about a work out.

I also wonder just how fast the it will be. In other words, if I flick my wrist all the way over to one side, will it update just as fast as it would have as if it were a mouse? Already there is going to be a bit of natural inertia to overcome as the controller and my hand (extended from the body no less) will provide quite a bit of mass.

Wish they had showed some games rather than cleverly (imo) hiding current game development.

 

[jpr27]

Hmmmm must say I never expected this out of the many theories going around. I can see some potential but when I look at it and compare it to say a TV Remote etc the ergonomics especially during a long game marathon comes to mind. The thought of positioning, movement, pointing (Aiming?) , add on analog stick, (or other attachable devices?) along with button placement seems like it might become a little uncomfortable afte awhile. (The good ole days of D-pad blisters was bad )

I think we need to see the controller used in the game environment (or types of games from Nintendo like Mario 129 that should utilize it) to see if the potential is there. Right now I'm a little skeptical but will wait until we see how developers take advantage of it. Otherwise it might be the GC controller that sees the most use and I'm not the biggest fan of the GC controller but the wavebird is a good alternative never the less.

 

[gkar1]

Of jeebus, innovation and progress? You never used a gyro mouse? Did you ever use a powerglove?

Innovation would be a lightweight wireless pair of display glasses with silicon mesoscale gyroscopes to do head tracking. Or a force feedback haptic glove. But a bulky and boxy gyro mouse? It's the Powerglove and ROB The Robot of this generation. I swear, the people who think Nintendo can do no wrong are like the Apple zealots who brainlessly defend even the worst ideas (e.g. Mighty Mouse)

Try this experiment: Pick up a TV remote and pretend to play a first person shooter by waving it in the air for like 10 minutes, and then tell me that this controller is a great idea. It's a gimmick, a gimmick that will quickly turn into something that sits in a dusty drawer while you put standard controllers on your revolution. Few games will use it, maybe there will be a few mega hits like Nintendogs, that use the special interface, but the bulk of games won't.

First person shooters demand *precision* input, and anyone who has ever filmed with a handheld camcorder knows how precise steadying with your arm, especially one handed is. The reason why the mouse works so well in FPSes is its precision and acceleration. Waving your arm around can make the acceleration, but it won't make the precision.

I'm sorry, but the holy grail of FPS console controllers hasn't been invented yet. And oddly enough, this controller announcement seems like a dodge to divert attention once again from anything substantative about the Revolution hardware itself.

I'll give credit to Nintendo, they sure do take risks, but greatert than 50% of their "innovations" are flops IMHO. (Virtual Boy anyone?)

I wont argue with your pessimistic views. If you ran the games industry and i sure am glad you dont we'd still have unlicensed crap software for ATARI systems and still be using joysticks with 1 button.
Who gives a flying duck what the system specs are because in the end they are only dick measuring gimmicks. Not surprisingly tho, thats exactly what SONY and MS have focused on instead of innovating the industry.
The controlled opens many possibilities and if you could see more than 2 inches in front of your face, you'd realize its potential.

Oh and if you bothered to read instead of bashing, you'd notice there is no mention of gyros in the article. It uses a pair of sensors on the corners of your tv set and a chip on the controler itself to track the movements in the 3d space created.
http://gamecube.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782

http://cubemovies.ign.com/cube/video/article/651/651334/revolutiontrailer_091605_qtlow.mov

 

[Guden Oden]

Innovation would be a lightweight wireless pair of display glasses with silicon mesoscale gyroscopes to do head tracking. Or a force feedback haptic glove. But a bulky and boxy gyro mouse? It's the Powerglove and ROB The Robot of this generation. I swear, the people who think Nintendo can do no wrong are like the Apple zealots who brainlessly defend even the worst ideas (e.g. Mighty Mouse)

I dunno, I feel nearly as sceptical about this mouse...remote...thing as you do, yet I think perhaps we all should at least try it before we guillotine it.

Comparing it with the powerglove, which was a cheap toy in the mid 80s - that's 20 years ago just to clarify - isn't exactly fair. After all, we don't compare the PSP with Game&Watch. Things have changed since then.

 

[one]

the conference slides
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20050916/iwata.htm

 

[µCOM-4]

Now I know why they didn't show the controller at E3. Sony's demo of Eye Toy in their presentation basically covered their features, when the eye toy creator demonstrated Eye Toy by scooping water using cups in that virtual tub. This is more or less the same. Maybe more functional in one way, less flexible in another compare to eye toy.

I don't think that's why they didn't show it. They've talked about not showing anything controller related even before E3. This sounds more functional than ET considering it's modular.

I'm so looking forward to testing this controller out. Nintendo knows what they're doing, just look at the DS.

Well isn't that one of the improvement for eye toy 2 ? It can detect movement of depth too ? I mean it isn't hard to do you just look at the size of the object, if it becomes smaller its been move back, larger its been move forward, etc.

You cannot detect size changes from moving an inch forward or backward with camera technology. Nobody wants to move a foot forward or backward just to get inaccurate movement detection at best. Gyros are superior to a single camera.

If you make it very sensitive, then you'll screw up peoples games.

It's trivial to control sensitivity through software. You can always tone down sensitivity from a mechanically sensitive device, however, you cannot create accuracy through software from a mechanically inaccurrate device.

I love how Nintendo had the white colored Revolution with a white colored controller. It even has some transparent buttons. Very Appleish which is not a bad thing.

Let me say this: I'm so glad Nintendo is still in the hardware business. They seem to be the only innovative source for video games.

Ditto.

On top of that, if the system does use a Gamecube controller for a lot of its games, that controller was generally considered the worst of the current gen controllers due to having less buttons and a odd right thumbstick.

Says who? There are a lot of people who prefer the GC controller over a PS2 controller or Xbox controller. Don't know where you get the idea that more buttons equal better. I'd take a GC controller over a PS2 controller anyday of the week.

So, am I the first one to see the obvious (slight) fundamental flaw with this whole concept?
Nintendo sells a LOT of consoles at WalMart. WalMart mostly has playable kiosks that they set up themselves (not the kinds that are provided by the big three). This controller is only wireless. There is no wired version. I would assume that after the first generation of Revolution games, developers for the system will settle into a pattern of about (at least) one-half of the games available requiring an extra peripheral for control. How does WalMart secure this wireless controller to their kiosks (and also secure the peripherals to each other)? Will they have to drill holes into both the Rev Remote and the Rev Peripheral and run two chains to each to tether it to the kiosk? Will they put epoxy around the peripheral port and just have one peripheral permanently attached to the Rev Remote so that they only have to run one chain? And, since it has to be tethered to the kiosk (I know WalMart very well. They won't allow you to just pick it up freehand), doesn't that kinda ruin the whole experience of playing with this fancy new airborne controller?
Maybe I'm overthinking the whole situation and there's a simple solution that Nintendo has already thought of.
Thoughts?

Easy solution would be to secure a metal cable around the wire that connects the left and right controllers. Or a metal ring around said wire with metal cable.

 

[one]

Official Nintendo page
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/tgs2005/index.html
Iwata's speech
http://www.irwebcasting.com/050916/02/eec05e89e7/main/index_hi.htm

 

[µCOM-4]

"How do you return your hand to center without turning left?"

Probably works like the Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike.

The turning starts when you are aiming close to the edge of the screen. So if your turning left, a right movement of the controller won't cause a right turn until you get close to the right side.

I thought it worked pretty well with the Dual Strike. Much better than an analog stick.

Yep, in fact lots of graphics cards allow virtual desktops where you can pan in all directions with your mouse.

 

[N00b]

Did somebody just say lightsaber duell?

Now try to do that with a mouse or a gamepad...

 

[StefanS]

I can honestly say that I was determined to only buying a PS3 this time around, but Nintendo has just sold me a Revolution in addition to a PS3. This thing looks so funny, that I am more than just curious. I expect Nintendo's launch games to showcase its abilities (Mario 128, Super Smash Bros.). They're probably doing that weird Pokemon game with the instruments, etc.

I am excitedly wating for gameplay movies...

 

[Inane_Dork]

Have you ever watched newbie gamers? When they play racing games they frequently roll the contoller, when they play FPS games they move the controller in the direction they want to go. And they do this all while sitting down. Weird, but true.

True, but we're talking about turning something instinctive into a discipline. It sounds great, but instinct might not be exclusive. For instance, moving forward and looking up might both elicit moving the controller up. It could work really well, though. There are just so many variables and new control mechanisms to test.

RTS => DOUBLE CHECK!! Not quite a mouse, but close enough

480p => back to one check. Res is really important to RTS games.

Let me say this: I'm so glad Nintendo is still in the hardware business. They seem to be the only innovative source for video games.

Controllers are not going to solve any perceived lack of innovation problems. The root of the problem, IMO, is in the expense, pay structure, market and publisher/developer relationship. Making a new controller is putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

LOL. I'm amazed on how so many of you immediately doubt such a fresh idea. It's exciting!

*shrugs*
I can't believe how many of you are on this one night stand with Nintendo PR. Games? Screens? Games? Specs? Games? Dates? Games? Prices? Games? It's like y'all took one look at the possibilities and stopped thinking. It's just not warranted to get all excited right now, IMO. I can't buy IGN's fevered forecast of how amazing the potential is. I can't play Gamespot's puppy love for spatial and rotational control.

Please forgive me if that came off as harsh. I do not mean it that way.

Looks like a gyro mouse. Having used one, I remain a bit skeptical. Does anyone know if this has a button that activates the gyroscope or is it on all the time?

Thank goodness someone else has actually used a gyroscopic mouse! They're not exactly the most intuitive things in the world, IMO.



Anyway, the design has so many potential downfalls and additions it's impossible to pass final judgment on it.

 

[Riddlewire]

Easy solution would be to secure a metal cable around the wire that connects the left and right controllers. Or a metal ring around said wire with metal cable.

That won't work.
The left and right controllers connect through a cord that easily detaches. Someone can just unplug left from right, slip the cord out of the "metal ring" and then take off with both sides. And such a system still requires the whole thing to be weighed down by a cable or coiled cord, which interferes with the free movement that Nintendo designed the controller for in the first place.

 

[µCOM-4]

It's been tried before with the powerglove. All of these "move your arm around" devices result in one thing: arm fatigue. Try getting one of those mice that you hold in your hand and wave your hand around and use it for a few hours. Then you'll realize how much you 'rest' your hands on your mouse. Next time you place on your console, think about how often you rest the controller between your leggs, or put your elbows on your thighs, etc..

Does a laser pointer require you to wave your arms like a monkey? What's stopping a smart person from resting the arm with laser point in hand on their lap and just moving their wrist or even fingers? Know how to use a pen or pencil? Know how smart people rest their writing hand on something to write more accurately? Know what a hand holding a pencil on lap looks like?

This controller is the stupidest think I've seen in alot time, and the WIRE between the pieces of it are doubly stupid.

It's only stupid to those who cannot see beyond their own closed mindedness. I'm glad there are people who think outside the box.

 

[µCOM-4]

That won't work.
The left and right controllers connect through a cord that easily detaches. Someone can just unplug left from right, slip the cord out of the "metal ring" and then take off with both sides. And such a system still requires the whole thing to be weighed down by a cable or coiled cord, which interferes with the free movement that Nintendo designed the controller for in the first place.

Uh no, the cord doesn't detach. The cord is attached to a small block that can accept another attachment. It's like a dumbell. You gotta Houdini to be able to slip a metal ring off of a dumbell with permanently attached weights. BTW how do you slip a metal cord off of a metal ring? A cord is just a longer metal ring. How do you slip off the metal ring if they're both interconnected?

Ever seen shackles? The chain is the metal cord and the shackle is the metal ring. The shackle goes around the controller wire.

BTW ever see those Kensington metal wire locks for notebooks? That's all you need and as far as free movement, ever heard of a longer metal wire?

 

[Li Mu Bai]

So much ignorance & bias against Nintendo here, clearly not much thought nor much background reading has gone into this. (Power Glove?) Clearly all software will not use all of the controller's potential possibilities (ala the DS) & let's completely gloss over the fact that it can be slid into other more traditional controller peripherals to become more standardized. If having a real-time internet swordfight doesn't excite you, or swinging at real opponents' pitches, you're either too obese or lazy, or simply not a real gamer.

Real developers chime in:

"Game control is essential - it's the area where perhaps the most game-play improvement can be made," said John Schappert, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Electronic Arts Canada. "While our portfolio represents a full array of titles across all genres, I think our sports titles might be the first to immediately take advantage of what this novel 'freehand' type of control has to offer."

"We were among the first publishers to see the control design in action," said Serge Hascoet, Chief Creative Officer of Ubisoft. "We're excited about the new controller and are looking forward to taking advantage of its innovative aspects."

http://cube.ign.com/articles/651/651304p1.html

As far as fps are concerned, direct impressions from 1UP:

DEMO: METROID PRIME-TIME
Nintendo saved the best for last. This was the first section of the GameCube game Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, retrofitted to be compatible with the Revolution controller and its analog add-on piece (the "Nunchaku" set-up mentioned earlier). As on the Cube the analog stick controls movement, but instead of holding down a button to look around, you simply point the other controller in the direction you want to aim.

IMPRESSIONS: At first, I was standing up and swinging my hand all around to aim - and my arms got really tired really quick. But once I sat down and relaxed, resting my hands on my legs as I would with a normal controller, everything clicked. It wasn't perfect yet - the Revolution controller functionality had just been added recently and wasn't bug tested or polished, so every so often the view would "spaz out" for a couple seconds - but it was enough to get me excited. As odd as it may look holding the two separate controller pieces, one in each hand, looking around felt incredibly natural, even more than my preferred PC-style keyboard-and-mouse setup. I have to wonder about precision and speed in multiplayer games, but for a more deliberate single-player game like Metroid Prime - and the series is already confirmed for an appearance on the Revolution - this setup already has huge potential.

Precision aiming:

IMPRESSIONS: A great demonstration of how intuitive the controller can be-pointing it to aim felt perfectly natural, right from the very first second, just like with a light gun. It always shot exactly where it felt like I was aiming, and was incredibly responsive to even slight wrist movements-I barely had to move my hand at all.

Flight-based game possibilities:

IMPRESSIONS: This was about all the different ways the Revolution can detect tilting the controller. It was as if the controller was the airplane itself - as long as your movements weren't too sudden, the on-screen action would mimic your movements with very little lag time. After about a minute I was pulling dramatic dives and loop-de-loops, bullseye-ing plenty of rings.

http://gamecube.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782

Of course Nintendo is still refining it's control, but the possibilities have been demonstrated here nonetheless. Notice the lack of negativity in impressions from those who actually demoed the controller as opposed to you viewing an exaggerated commercial made for the purposes of exhibiting its many innovative gameplay aspects imo. You must surely realize that all games will not require such intense movements. I quoted heavily for those too lazy to read. If it mimics keyboard/mouse control as closely as indicated, (with added functionality) fpsers will be pure heaven. If you skeptics had any imagination whatsoever, you would see what this could do/add to many existing genres.

 

[Uncle]

Thank goodness someone else has actually used a gyroscopic mouse! They're not exactly the most intuitive things in the world, IMO.

It's a great remote for HTPC based entertainment center, but I wouldn't use it for gaming that's for sure. It's pretty hard to pick a one song out of a playlist (even when you can turn the gyroscope off) for example, so any game that requires precision can be frustrating.


I can think of games that can certainly benefit from this kind of control, but it just seems like a gimmick to me. Sword games could be great for exapmle. the only problem there is, that the controller can't stop your movement when you hit something, so it could feel kinda dumb after a while. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.