Nintendo's Revolution

After taking a near 10-year gap from games consoles, I finally relented and bought a cheap Gamecube about 19 months ago. By sticking to the principle of not paying more than £15 for a game I've slowly built up a collection of excellent games. Now though, the big 3 companies are about to launch new models. At the recent E3 show they were unveiled one by one.

First up was Microsoft's Xbox360. Aggressively pushing for a pre Christmas launch may yet backfire as several key launch games have now been postponed. The console itself offers more power but most of that will go on HD graphics which will be the buzzword for the next few years.

Second up was Sony, who showed off the prototype for the PS3. Sony have gone on record as saying that the PS3 will be expensive. Given that they're including a BluRay drive with the console bears this out. The launch for this one will probably be Easter in Japan but we may not see it here until 2007.

Finally was a press conference from Nintendo. The revolution was only shown in model form - specifications were not ready and there was no sign of the controller. Critics mulled over how this was thrown together just to keep up with the competition. The response came last week with the release of details about the controller...

The biggest thing to happen to controllers in the previous 15 years had been the N64's analogue stick. Together with games such as GoldenEye and Mario64 this controller forced Sega and Sony to rerelease their own pads to try to compete. The revolution controller, at first glance, looks nothing more than a remote control with a few buttons on it. Memories of "interactive systems" such as the CD-i flash before your eyes. After reading a few lines of the description though, you calm down...The sensor rests under your TV - this can read signals from the "remote" about the orientation of the device in space. Move the controller right and the sensor knows, move it closer to the screen and it knows, twist it round...well you get the picture. Extra peripherals can plug into it (I've posted a picture with a mini joystick).

Imagine first-person game where you move with the joystick and can look around simply by moving the controller around; a dark game where the controller acts as a torch and you choose where to shine it; A driving game where the controller becomes a steering wheel or even a bat/racket for sports games. Have a look at this link for more info. My interest has been captured now. So much so that I'm probably going to pick one of these machines up as soon as they launch.

There's a nice article on gamepad history over at 1up.