Nintendo Revolution News: True or False?

[Musical_Master]

December 23, 2004 - Earlier this week, the respected Japanese business magazine Shuukan Diamond reported in its 2005 Preview Edition that the Nintendo Revolution Controller will not feature a directional pad or A and B buttons.


If the news turns out to be true, Revolution would be the first Nintendo console to not feature a D-Pad and the A/B button combo. Nintendo has long said that it seeks to innovate with new control mechanisms, as evidenced by the inclusion of a touch screen on the Nintendo DS.
Given the focus of setting the A and B buttons on the GameCube controller apart from the now industry standard four-button layout, it will be interesting to see what new setup Nintendo is planning to bring to the table.

According to Shuukan Diamond, the wait will not be long. The magazine reports that Nintendo will debut GameCube's successor at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, May 2005.

None of the magazine's claims were substantiated by Nintendo, but given the publication's track record of accurate business reporting since 1913, we'd be surprised if Diamond's claims turned out to be false.

Source: http://cube.ign.com/articles/575/575714p1.html

Very interesting.. I personally think it is a rumor. Nintendo will never stray from the classic a and b buttons. :P

--MM--

[P4NC4K3Z]

i believe it should be false...but time will tell...ahh i wanna fast forward to 2005 to see the nintendo revolution and the play the uber kewl games ^_^

[chuddy_2001uk]

Well the answer is, there is no answer. Nobody knows except for Nintendo themselves. Bring on 2005 !!!

[P4NC4K3Z]

maybe the control place would be touchable like the ds for precise control? thumbstrap for it perhaps?

[Skyline]

Or maybe we will use our minds.

[Lkr]

I think it is so false. No Nintendo system has ever had no A and B buttons. They are legends, like if there were no A and B buttons Nintendo consoles wouldn't be special. I would never say that that article is true, until I get more information from E3 2005, which I will get all of the lowdown in Nintendo Power(Nintendo's official magazine in North America).

[touchds]

Maybe it will be a touch screen pad - so developers can design their own button layout for the controller. That would be awesome - they could add or remove buttons depending on what the game needed and every game would play well because the layout would be perfect.

Apparently a company has come up with tangible (feel-able) touch screen buttons (no idea how) so maybe that will be used aswell to make the touch screen buttons feel like buttons.

Time will tell... (i'm saying that a lot recently!)

[Lkr]

I hope that it isn't touch screen. I think that touch screen should be exclusive to the DS.

P.S. This is my 150th post! I am a Gameboy Color Now!

[alex]

if the controllers had touch screen wouldn’t that increase the price a lot (or any kind of screen on them)

[Musical_Master]

This is long, but read it:

Originally Posted by cube.ign.com

Nintendo Gyroid
Chance: Plausible
The purpose of an input device on a games machine is to allow the user to control the on-screen action. The holy grail for such a device is remove the "middle man" almost entirely, leaving you feeling as if you are truly a part of the digital world without any complex devices to distract you. And what better way to get closer to this vision than to use completely natural real-world hand gestures?

In the past decade or so, several companies have developed micro-machines that use gyration technology based on the science behind a gyroscope. Let's do a quick refresher to see how that works exactly. The idea behind a gyroscope is that if you spin something really fast then it will have equal amounts of pressure on all sides (virtually) and therefore can stay balanced. So imagine balancing a disc on the middle of your finger. If you were to press down on one of the sides it would surely fall off. However, now imagine that you are spinning this disc at a very high velocity. When you go to apply pressure to one side of the disc, your finger would be virtually drawing a circle almost instantly around the disc. Since the force is not being applied in any one area of the disc more than any other, the disc remains flat. The phenomenon has led us to develop sophisticated sensors that can be used to sense movement and angles. Such technology has been built into things like airplanes, which feature more than 11 of these gyroscopes for their compass and auto-pilot. The important thing to note here is that gyroscopes prove handy in motion sensors because they will face one direction constantly (almost like the needle of a compass).

In September of 2001 Gyration Inc., a leading manufacturer of efficient gyroscope sensors, announced a deal with Nintendo. The details of the deal were straightforward - Nintendo was to invest an undisclosed amount of money into the company in return for the use of the Gyration technology. Some interesting things were said around that time:

"Gyration intends to be the first company to produce game controllers enhanced with gyroscopic motion-sensors, which have a tenfold performance increase over accelerometer tilt sensors and add the ability to sense yaw as well as pitch. A gyro-equipped, motion-sensing controller provides a natural method of game control that draws the player into the game and makes game play more enjoyable. The motion sensor can take the place of a typical thumb pressure pad allowing one-handed game play, or can be integrated into a two-handed controller to add a dimension to game playing not possible with traditional game controllers." - Gyration Inc.

"Unlike accelerometers used by all other motion game manufactures, gyros can track the yaw axis motion that is critical for intuitive game control. Yaw axis tracking allows users to naturally point and move objects left and right much the way screen objects move on their TVS without having to tilt the game controller." -Marc Harris, Gyration Inc.

Essentially the player, by using natural gestures both horizontally and vertically, can interact with the game he/she is playing in a more natural way. However, to do so you would need a completely revolutionary design to compliment the idea. Two such ideas are the "glove" and the "handle." Imagine if you will, a glove not unlike those used in the film Minority Report to control computers. A simple device that would allow for you to move your hand freely while giving extra commands by doing such things as clenching your fist or pointing a finger. Moving your hand through the air could translate to movement of objects on screen. The "handle" on the other hand, would probably more down to earth. It could be like the handle of a light saber with a button on top as well as next to the middle and trigger fingers. It could be held upright like a gun for a bevy of titles and could even be held sideways to simulate holding the top of a steering wheel. The common thread here is that you must be able to move the controller freely in the air while still allowing for some other input commands via buttons, finger movements, etc.

Touch pads would be cool, but gyration technology would make for some VERY innovative gameplay.

--MM--