When Nintendo announced that its next-gen system would be titled the Revolution, it seemed like more talk from a company hoping to gain the rhetorical edge over Sony and Microsoft. But when Nintendo actually showed their new controller, it lived up to the hype. If the controller works like Nintendo boasts, then it might very well be a genuine revolution in videogames.
Instead of relying purely on joystick jabbing and button mashing, the Revolution comes with an internal sensor that detects movement. In other words, you’ll be using fewer buttons, but you’ll also be moving the controller to control action onscreen. Swing it back and forth to simulate swinging a sword, or up and down to control your golf swing. Pair it with another controller and drum with them to keep a beat going. Cast it back and forth to simulate a fishing rod. Dual-wield your controllers, John Woo style, to control virtual guns. In short—and since the Revolution’s controller isn’t launching until sometime in 2006—if the controller can be as intuitive and fluid to use as Nintendo’s making it out to be, playing videogames just got a lot more interactive, and a lot more intuitive.
My optimism over the new controller isn’t wholehearted, though. While Nintendo’s proven they’re the ones to look to when inventing imaginative new ways to play games (like the touch-screen-enabled Nintendo DS), they’ve also proven that sometimes they try a bit too hard (like with the Power Glove or the ill-fated Virtual Boy). If the Revolution’s controller takes off, we could be looking at a way of controlling games that will not only be new for gamers, but could be more inviting for those who don’t want to learn a complex controller (like PlayStation’s or Xbox’s). And all doubts aside, anything that opens up gaming to more people—especially when it looks to be this simple, inventive, and easy—can only be a good thing.
