Revolution Controller Finally Revealed
We've seen it, touched it, played games with it. Read this now.
by Mark McDonald, 09/15/2005
________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________

The entire industry has been clamoring for a taste of Nintendo's so-called next-generation 'revolution.' So have we. Every time Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has opened his mouth, he underscored time and time again Nintendo would not be following the traditional path of a new console. Rumors have persisted for weeks about touch screens, gyroscope functions, virtual headsets, and everything else under the sun.

Nintendo always emphasized they weren't following Sony and Microsoft, and boy, they weren't kidding. Nintendo decided Tokyo Game Show (an event the company typically forgoes in favor of Space World) was the right time to sit down with select members of the press and unveil their vision of gaming's future. And guess what? We were there.

We've seen the Revolution, touched and played with its radically different take on the game controller, talked with visionary designer Shigeru Miyamoto about the reasoning behind Nintendo's new approach and we're back with our lengthy, hands-on impressions.

Has Nintendo struck gold again? Read on and find out.

The Revolution Controller Basics: What The Hell Is It?
The controller for Nintendo's upcoming Revolution home console system is a cordless remote-control-like device designed to be used with only one hand. Two small sensors placed near the TV and a chip inside the controller track its position and orientation, allowing the player to manipulate the action on screen by physically moving the controller itself. For example, you could slash an in-game sword by actually swinging the controller from side to side, turn a race car just by twisting your wrist, or aim your gun in a shooter by pointing the controller where you want to fire.

An expansion port on the bottom of the unit allows for add-on hardware to compliment this "remote controller" (our word for it, not Nintendo's), like a second controller piece Nintendo demonstrated that comes equipped with an analog stick and two trigger buttons (currently labeled Z1 and Z2, for those of you keeping track). When the two controller pieces are attached, the so-called 'Nunchaku' configuration (the two bits are connected by a short cord) can work similarly to current controllers, just with the second analog stick replaced by actual movement of the Revolution controller. Nintendo also mentioned that the controller stick could be slipped inside other, more conventional controller shells, dance mats, bongos, or other peripherals.

A large "A" button sits in the prime spot under your thumb on the face of the controller, with a "B" trigger on the back of the unit for your index finger. Otherwise the button configuration is an interesting mix of old and new: standard D-pad up top, near the power button (to turn the Revolution console on and off), Start and Select in the middle, on either side of the intriguing "Home" button (Nintendo wouldn't go into detail, but sounds like it has to do with navigating system menus, which will be important given the Revolution's promised WiFi connectivity), and two more buttons near the bottom labeled "a" and "b." These last two may seem uncomfortably low for your thumb until you turn the controller 90 degrees and it becomes just like an old 8-bit NES joypad, with the D-pad under your left thumb and "a" and "b" under your right. (Don't forget-Nintendo has promised downloadable versions of their classic games for the Revolution's "Virtual Console.") Nintendo mentioned the button names and their exact sizes could still change slightly before production, but what you see here is close to the final design.

Elsewhere on the controller, the four lights at the very bottom represent which player it belongs to, and that hatch on the back is the battery compartment. (The prototype Revolution controllers we saw used regular batteries just like the GameCube's WaveBird wireless controller-and last a similar amount of time, according to Nintendo-but reps wouldn't say for certain if the final unit would use batteries or some rechargeable option.) The effective maximum range for the wireless controller is expected to be somewhere between 10 and 15 feet. A variety of different colored controllers were on display, including red, lime green, white, gray, black, and silver. Finally, rumble functionality is built in to the controller.

Click to read about the game demo's ....