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Nintendo “Revolution” Console Coming 2006 |
It requires locution — Nintendo has some intestinal fortitude. In this market, they certainly need it. The self-proclaimed king of the family genre of video gaming, Nintendo isn’t so much a monarch as a viscount to Grand Duke Sony and Emperor Microsoft for their respective PlayStation 2 and X-Box consoles. With the Gamecube dead in the water, the Japanese former board-game manufacturer has taken things back to the drawing room.
Nintendo’s drawing room, it would appear, is a den.
The Revolution is a sleek, side-righted console appearing like an inverse PS2 with one edge sinking into the carpet, accompanied by a peculiarly-designed controller that is innovative by way of not being innovative. It instantly recalls the oldest television peripheral other than the roof-mounted aerial: the remote control.
Nintendo is making a bold statement: will gaming now occupy some bisective meridian betwixt what we used to consider gaming and passive television-watching? Once the game-player had to learn an entirely new dextral symbology to enter the game world — D-pad, analog sticks, triggers and buttons. The Revolution’s remote harkens back to a device even your grandfather knew how to operate. The wand, traditionally an empowerer from its days in Ancient Rome as a fasces, may here be deployed as a simplifier, a cruder tool for less-complexity-required interaction with a game. Will the remote controller be a worse disaster than the Gamecube’s oddly-centralized A-button placement? Or will it subvert gaming and television as we know it? The first shot has been fired across interactivity’s bow.
Interactivity, fire at will.
September 17th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
The video here Shows some conceptual uses for it.
Interesting but overall seems exhausting just to look at. I use gaming as a relaxing outlet. Jumping around like I’m Andre Agassi isn’t something I’d look forward to. Also, am I far off in thinking that I’ll have to be as good as him to be able to compete if it’s taking into account my real reflexes and movement? Remember the Power Glove? Spacial movement isn’t all it’s cracked it up to be.
I’ve been impressed with the DS though, and I thought that was going to flop big time.
September 18th, 2005 at 10:28 am
One can imagine the lopsided muscle development of the right arms of a thousand gamers. Were there two wands, games could be controlled conductor-style.
September 19th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
There’s a crude joke somewhere in there.
November 9th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
As though said lopsided muscle development didn’t exist in full force already.
…And there it is.