You asked.

I can't make my mind up about the damn Revolution controller. Except that it looks neat and fun and I want one. But that's me, and I say that and mean it about pretty much every controller that comes out, so I'm not the best judge. It works out for me, because I'll enjoy it no matter what impact it has on the future of the video game industry or whatever.

First a little intro about the "Revmote", done completely off the top of my head and with kind of a fuzzy understanding of the technology. If you want "facts", or "barely concealed Nintendo fanboyism as professional journalism"then I guess I'll direct you to this IGN article. Sorry I linked to IGN. I'll try not to do it anymore.

In case you haven't seen it, this is the controller.



There's a TOTALLY NON-MOTION SICKNESS INDUCING (thx Jessica) video on this page that shows actors pretending like their Rev controllers are plugged in. It should give you an idea of how people who have never seen a video game pantomime how Revolution games will be played.

What you see is two parts: the "remote" part and what lovable Internet types like me (but cleverer than me) have dubbed the "nunchuck" attachment. The remote is the main component of the controller, and in addition to having the obvious d-pad and annoyingly labeled buttons (A, b, a, select, start. Seriously, there are two a buttons on this thing. There are other letters, guys, seriously. Hell, talk to Sony-- they aren't even using letters!), the thing is a 3D pointer with rumble and (possible) force feedback. So, to use the dumb cliche examples that have been brought up so far, in a tennis game you swing the thing like a racket, in a cooking game you make, you know, sauteeing motions, and in a football game you spike it on the fucking floor. You would tilt the thing in the direction you want Mario to go, and jerk it upward to make him jump. It sounds fun and novel to me, but also weird. But wait, there's more! The nunchuck attachment has an analog stick, so you can do basically dual-analog things (FPS games are the most common example) using the stick and the pointer. Nintendo has promised that there will be many such attachments, and that they will be inexpensive. I predict that one of those promises will be true. I actually don't know which one.

So why this controller? Why this shape? Does the Revolution controller look like something to you? Something... familiar, maybe, that you use every day even when you're not playing video games? That's right, a television remote. You see, TV remotes are covered with buttons and all kinds of crazy shit, but people use them just fine. But when you give a non-gamer, say, a Dual Shock, and offer them a game of Ico, they'll spend a few seconds pounding buttons as hard as possible and wiggling all the analog sticks, then waving the controller around in the air for some reason, before giving up and telling you that games are too complicated. Maybe they'll tell you what games used to be like, because you've never played Pac-Man before.

I'd like to say that this scenario relies on outrageous stereotypes, so I will. It's also largely true. I saw plenty of (and here's where the REAL stereotyping gets going!) girlfriends and old people frustrating themselves with whatever demos I had in the machines at Game X Change. I eventually learned that it didn't matter how good I thought a game was, it still wouldn't win over non-gamers if they didn't know how to "make the man move".



Non-gamers-- that's who Nintendo is making the Revolution for. Not us. Not people who have grown up with games and would like to see the medium evolve, although in the right hands the thing has the potential to help that along. Nintendo got the idea with the Rev to go after the biggest demographic of all: the "everyone else" set. You know, the people who hate games but are addicted to computer solitaire. The people who don't want to buy strategy guides, and don't know what a hit point is. And especially people who stopped playing video games years ago-- these people are very important to Nintendo's strategy. Nintendo is making a cheap(er) system, with a controller that looks like an iPod and a Tivo got it on, which doesn't have too many buttons and uses a fairly transparent method of control (the controller's movement translates directly into onscreen movement), to attract new gamers. And, more than the controller, here's what Nintendo is doing to capture casual gamers-- they are making old games available for download. Think iTunes for old games. They've said it will be stuff for every system from the NES to the N64, for some unspecified 'low' cost. So if you remember this weird game you used to have where you shoot ducks and the dog laughs, [i]you can get it,[/i] and the Revmote will emulate a gun controller pretty well. If you missed a couple of Zeldas, go ahead and download them. It won't cost much.

Do I think this strategy is going to work? Hell if I know. What I do know is that by saying that games are too complicated and need a serious change, they're alienating the people who are proven to buy video games. It's obvious to me who they should be marketing to-- me. What I see in the Rev is not a perfect casual system-- it's the perfect second system. You buy your PS3 or X360 to play new FPS, and Madden, and franchise games and such, and you buy an inexpensive Rev to play first-party Nintendo titles (which are going to be the only ones to make good use of the remote anyway) and download old games. The only things they need to do to ensure sales to people like me (assuming, for a second, that I'm not going to buy one just on the principle of it being a new system, which I'm really trying not to do anymore) are:

-Nintendo franchises. Duh. Whatever controller they use, a Nintendo system needs Mario and Zelda. Oh, and Pokemon.

-Super-obscure downloadable games. Yeah, I know I'm going to be able to download first-party hits from the ages. But what about obscure stuff? Japanese games? Power Pad games? Color a Dinosaur? I had better be able to buy shit I've never heard of. I've played Punch-Out before, guys.

And that's it. Do that and you have the potential to get everybody, from hardcore gamers who want to hate Nintendo for innovation to people who watched their kids play Excitebike for a few minutes. But hey, Nintendo? You really want money? Do this:

-Open development. Let us write our own Rev games and put them up for free download. Instant internet priapism.

I guess I sort of got away from the topic of the controller, and talked about market analysis for some reason. Mostly that I forgot all the examples I had come up with of neat things to do with the Revolution controller. I had a lot. Uh, I mean, let's discuss some possibilities in the comments thread!