Nintendo Revolution(ary) controller revealed

September 16, 2005 | Video Games

The new controller for the Nintendo Revolution has been revealed

What can I say - wow - it’s certainly different. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I’ll definitely be getting one! Since it’s not obvious from a static image the new controller uses a couple of sensors on the tv to track it’s position in 3d space, meaning you can wave it around to control… well… whatever the game developers can think of! The demo’s mentioned on the ign page show a few of the possibilities - tennis, fishing, sword fighting, conducting music, baseball there is stacks of potential. With the analogue stick and all the buttons that are spread around the place traditional games are also possible.

I’m fairly confident there will be third party controllers released that are more ‘traditional’ but it’s definitely a step forward, and if it brings gaming to a wider audience, it can only be good.

Update : Reading other sites the only place that mentions the two motion sensors is 4dolorrebellion. Eurogamer has this to say:

A sensor embedded in the top of the controller, called the Direct Pointing Device, will allow Revolution to sense the distance between the controller and the screen, where it’s pointing, and the angle it’s being held at.

So maybe it doesn’t use any sensors? I guess i’ll have to read up on it some more.

Update 2 There’s a transcript from someone who has used the new controller on the trance.nu forum. The more I hear about it the more interested I become.

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