Nintendo Revolution Controller Revealed

[wco81]

Ceci n'est pas une manette.

 

[Guden Oden]

anyway i think all the complainers and apologizers here need to shut up until they have tried it.

Wouldn't call myself an apologizer, but it looks "interesting". Scary, but "interesting".

It would look even more interesting if it had a few more god damn buttons. I swear, what is it with nintendo these days? They're getting button-scared. They need to rename the "a" and "b" buttons to something else and then stick two new ones next to the "A" button - I'd suggest one on either side. Maybe decrease size of "A" slightly to make room.

It's good that they try to make things easier, but they're trying to make things easier by going the route of simpler. However, EASIER and SIMPLER aren't always synonyms!

The only valid impressions of what it would be good for will come from the people that tried it...

We can still offer ideas and opinions though, without going overboard about it in either direction.

 

[pc999]

Gun's are hopelessly inaccurate if you've never trained to ensure you don't move your hand while pulling the trigger(forgetting recoil and being able to point in teh right place anyway). Same with photos, lots of people move the camera when they press the button.

Like everything, most people also think it is hard to use the mouse at first, and in fact they miss and such; just like to hit the right buttum at the right time in todays controllers, most of starters miss the buttums very hard, I cant see why people even touch in this point, at least serious.

 

[strat_ax]

Like many others, I was skeptical at first! But then the posibilities (ala DS)...very innovative indeed!

 

[Powderkeg]

When I play games I rest my hands on my lap so the controller doesn't move much at all. I play games in a relaxed seating position. In fact I hardly ever rest my elbows on my knees hunched forward let a lone hold the controller up in the air without support. If I don't have problems playing lightgun games then this controller would work just as well.

Do you ever sit completely motionless, without adusting seating position, coughing, sneezing, turning to look at the phone or someone else who entered the room, scratching an itch, farting, burping, yawning, stretching,or any other body movements for hours on end?

I think you'll be quite surprised how much you move when you aren't concentrating on remaining prefectly still.

 

[Powderkeg]

That is way none ever killed anyone with a gun.........wait.... it is something wrong here .

Irnoncally, fewer than 1% of the people who have shot a gun could classify as a marksman. Only about 10% of those people could qualify as a sniper.

The reason is as distance increases, so does the need to remain totally motionless while shooting, and few people can remain steady enough to get the job done. The majority of people couldn't hit a head-sized target from 100 yards without using some type of brace for the gun.

 

[Powderkeg]

Honestly. I think it looks cool, but won't be practical. anyway i think all the complainers and apologizers here need to shut up until they have tried it. anyone can come up with some sort of reason to like or dislike something like this.

The only valid impressions of what it would be good for will come from the people that tried it...

Try this.

Get out your TV remote. Attach a pencil to the end. Place the tip of the pencil on a piece of paper.

Now, hold the controller in front of you like you would if you were gaming with it. Press only 2 buttons on the controller for 2 hours, but don't move the controller in any direction. After the end of the 2 hours, you should have a single black dot where the pencil touched the paper, and no other dots, lines, or squiggles, and the dot should be no bigger than the pencil point.

Try it. See how comfortable it is. Ill be willing to bet that you'll move the controller in less than 15 minutes.

 

[mesyn191]

1st impression: WTF is Nintendo smoking!?!

2nd impression after seeing the video: its got potential but will almost certainly suck and/or be a gimmick.

I'm reserving judgement til' after I've had a chance to use one, all you people posting about how "innovative" this is and how anyone who says different and/or that it'll probably suck need to STFU. Just cuz something is innovative doesn't mean that it is automajically good or beyond any and all critcism.

 

[Powderkeg]

Like everything, most people also think it is hard to use the mouse at first, and in fact they miss and such; just like to hit the right buttum at the right time in todays controllers, most of starters miss the buttums very hard, I cant see why people even touch in this point, at least serious.

You've never actually shot a gun before, have you?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Like everything, most people also think it is hard to use the mouse at first, and in fact they miss and such; just like to hit the right buttum at the right time in todays controllers, most of starters miss the buttums very hard, I cant see why people even touch in this point, at least serious.

There's a world of difference though. Using a mouse you need to learn to apply force in one direction a set amount. Same with writing. It's teaching muscle movements. With a handheld motion sensitive controller, when you press a button you are going to cause a slight movement of the controller. That's unavoidable. Not just because of muscle motions, but because the tissue supporting the controller is soft and flexes. You can see this in action write now. Pick up a pencil as though it were the Rev controller and press your thumb on the top as though pressing a button. How much does the end move? You can try it with all sorts of different shaped objects. TV remotes, a box of mathes, a swiss army knife. There's invariably little movements.

On remote controls a wide area beam is used so you don't have to point directly are the IR receiver. If you've ever had one of those annoying remotes were you have to point very accurately you'll know how hard it is to aim.

Now yes it's something people can learn, but isn't that the point of the Rev controller? That it's instinctive? There's isn't hours of practise needed? Alongside the need to remain still and not readjust your position while playing this might be awkward for people.

However it probably will be well suited to simple games. If you use EITHER the pointing, OR the motion sensing, OR the D-pad it'll probably work quite well. Trying to use more than that though to me looks like these different functions will interfere with each other.

 

[KimB]

Have you ever attached a pencil to the top of your gamepad, and pressed the point against a piece of paper to see exactly how much unintentional hand movements you make while playing?

There are some people that move their controllers all around when playing games. There are others, like myself, whose controllers move very little.

And pc999 brought up a very interesting point: the Mouse has the same problems of movement while clicking. But it's not an issue once you've used a mouse enough.

 

[KimB]

There's a world of difference though. Using a mouse you need to learn to apply force in one direction a set amount. Same with writing. It's teaching muscle movements. With a handheld motion sensitive controller, when you press a button you are going to cause a slight movement of the controller. That's unavoidable. Not just because of muscle motions, but because the tissue supporting the controller is soft and flexes. You can see this in action write now. Pick up a pencil as though it were the Rev controller and press your thumb on the top as though pressing a button. How much does the end move? You can try it with all sorts of different shaped objects. TV remotes, a box of mathes, a swiss army knife. There's invariably little movements.

Edit after testing on my TV remote:
This is not true. You're holding the controller wrong if it is true.

Note the location of the trigger on the bottom, and the location of the button on top. This will ensure that people will be holding the controller in a very stable fashion, and so small movements should not happen, because you'll never be pressing in a location that's higher than your support fingers.

Now, exceedingly minute movements will happen, of course, but you just need a deadzone for these. And the hardware has to have a deadzone anyway, because the accelerometers won't be very accurate for very small movements.

 

[Powderkeg]

There are some people that move their controllers all around when playing games. There are others, like myself, whose controllers move very little.

"Very little" is a relative term. With this, you'll either need to remain completely motionless, or they will have to adjust the sensitivity to filter out minor movements, which means it will be a sloppy controller when fine input is needed.

And pc999 brought up a very interesting point: the Mouse has the same problems of movement while clicking. But it's not an issue once you've used a mouse enough.

A mouse rests on a table top or other stationary flat surface. Mice also only move in 2 dimensions, not 3.

But if you had to free-float the mouse, yes, pushing down on a button would move the mouse down, and that would create an unwanted input.

 

[JarrodKing]

Fine Motor Control

1. Write your name holding a pencil in your fingers.

2. Now tape a pencil to your hand and write your name.

See a difference? The fingers are where the fine motor control is in the human animal, being controlled by muscles in the hand whose job is fine movement. Asking the entire hand to be that accurate is asking larger clumsier muscles in the forearm to try to do a task they are not suited for. The muscles in the forearm are meant for holding and manipulating larger objects (a club, a knife, an axe) and the application of power.

I applaud Nintendo for trying to innovate, but I've used the old Nintendo Power Glove and it was the most frustrating "controller" ever devised. Some of this is because it used older technology, which has hopefully been improved, but some of the frustration is based on human anatomy which has not and will not change. For some games, maybe you won't need much accuracy, but I assume most games will require some modicum of precision in your pointing, making the use of this controller an exercise in frustration.

 

[Powderkeg]

Edit after testing on my TV remote:
This is not true. You're holding the controller wrong if it is true.

No, you are just lying. It's not a matter of how you hold the controller, it's a matter of physics. Flesh is flexible. That's simply an undeniable fact. If you put pressure on flesh, it will give, so any changes in pressure would result in a change of position of the controller.
The only possible way to avoid this would be to scrape all of the flesh of your hand so the controller rests on rigid bone.

Note the location of the trigger on the bottom, and the location of the button on top. This will ensure that people will be holding the controller in a very stable fashion, and so small movements should not happen, because you'll never be pressing in a location that's higher than your support fingers.

Squeezing the trigger changes your hand positioning,which changes the points at which the controller is balanced, which will result in a movement of the controller. Again, this is basic physics.

Now, exceedingly minute movements will happen, of course, but you just need a deadzone for these. And the hardware has to have a deadzone anyway, because the accelerometers won't be very accurate for very small movements.

Deadzones and fine movement are not compatible. Deadzones require you to overcompensate movement, which makes per-pixel precision nearly impossible.

 

[Guden Oden]

But if you had to free-float the mouse, yes, pushing down on a button would move the mouse down, and that would create an unwanted input.

Because you hold a mouse over the top half only, while this controller is held with the fingers curled around it, thus providing much better support. Also, you happily ignored Chalnoth's point about a deadzone, and the (inherent inability) to measure very slight movements.

Geez dude, don't you think nintendo has thought about, investigated and researched these concerns already? You must not have very high regards of their engineers.

Besides, you seem to completely disregard the human ability to learn and adapt. If button-presses leads to unwanted motions during gameplay, our brain will compensate automatically with a bit of training by either relaxing the pressing-motion, slightly tensioning muscles pulling in the opposite direction, or a combination thereof.

Are you trying to make things sound more difficult in regards to this new controller in an effort to bash it? Sure sounds like it buddy... Anyway, now I need to go out and ingest some hot spicy thaifood.

 

[Ragemare]

Depending on which button I press on one of my remotes, it moves very very slightly. The movement seems negligible, I highly doubt the average gamer can even come close to being able to accuratelly make movements that small. As others have said it probably falls within the dead zone.

I'd much rather use this device than a stick tbh, infact I'd like to try using this controller in a game like counter strike just for the novelty factor if nothing else.

 

[swaaye]

It does suck if you are used to PCs and console FPSes feel utterly sluggish and constrainted in comparison. People have been asking for keyboard+mouse/trackball for consoles for a reason. The reason is, RTS and FPS game control sucks. RTS can be fixed with laserpointing, but FPS won't.

I've been playing PC FPS's my entire life. That's from the first FPS ever (Wolf3D? not sure) to today. And, that didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying Halo or beating it 3 times (once on legendary). Personally I can play any game on a console. Maybe my hand-eye is better than most (I have friends that make this obvious), but I don't have a problem with consoles for any genre. Hell I even prefer the original Xbox controller over the new, smaller version.

This controller has me pumped. Xbox 360 and PS3 are technologically thrilling, but they're not really innovative. Nintendo has come out of the blue with a totally new way to play (I'm ignoring the trash from the past) and they are 100% behind it. How can you not be thrilled by the potential of this thing? Open up man.

If N wants to try to give us a new angle on playing games, good for them. Hell they are the primary reason we even have analog sticks today!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Depending on which button I press on one of my remotes, it moves very very slightly. The movement seems negligible, I highly doubt the average gamer can even come close to being able to accuratelly make movements that small. As others have said it probably falls within the dead zone.

Using the controller as a 'laser pointer', those tiny movements could be several millimetres on the screen depending on how you sit away from it. I remember a lightgun on Sega Master System and held in two hands close in the cursor still wobbled at a distance of a few feet from the screen. Modern tech and filtering might be able to compensate somewhat. It'll be interesting to see how effective the results are.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

See a difference? The fingers are where the fine motor control is in the human animal, being controlled by muscles in the hand whose job is fine movement

Actually this isn't entirely true. Calligraphers (at least some depending on how good your teacher is!) are taught to write using the whole arm. The results are smoother and more consistent then fingertip writing. The main difference is people aren't taught to use their arm for fine control, so when they give it a try they can't match the control of the fingers. People are very adaptable. Indeed one might say arms have more control then feet, but some armless artists have shown that even a leg+foot can manage excellent motor control when trained.