Nintendo Revolution Rumours Emerge

In more next-gen console news, ComputerandVideoGames.com has rumourmongering info on the new Nintendo console. Interesting bits like gyroscope sensing controllers and an online service make for intriguing ideas, but no details yet on what's going to make this console a revolution. From the article: "And what's revolutionary about Revolution? The inside source claims that talking about that "would get him into too much trouble" ... He is quoted as saying: "if you think too hard you'll never guess what it is. It's nothing 'new', technically speaking. It's just something that hasn't really been applied to videogames yet."

Comments

My thoughts

[Apreche]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Here's what my imagination "predicts" about the revolution.

Revolution = wireless DS hub + broadband ethernet.

16 people with DSes sit around a revolution in one city and play on a team against 16 people sitting around a revolution with DSes in another city. a 16vs16 person game where everyone has two screens and a controller. Also the revolution hooks up to a tv to provide the "big screen" for the whole team to see.

And that's taking it to the extreme. If you just keep it simple with something like internet enabled smash brothers with a new innovative control scheme you've already struck gold.

Nintendo is making the video game hardware that is truly revolutionary by innovating the game interface. They started by inventing the first real gamepad (the plus) and now the're taking it a step further. The only problem is that they do not make software that takes full advantage of the potential of the platform. And the quantity of software that takes advantage is not enough. I think it is because they are very protective of their dev kits, unlike Sony and MS who are very open in this area.

SPOILERS: They're full of shit

[mcc]

Think about it for a minute. This is so generic as to not really say anything; meanwhile, you could have made something up and posted it on some message board, and ComputerandVideoGames.com would have printed it, as would have slashdot. This particular rumor as near as I can gather originated from a forum post at n-sider citing a forum post on a nintendo.com forum citing "a source". Well then.

Meanwhile, if we look at what we actually know, this set of rumors has two small details that don't seem that they could be true. So putting aside "sources", here's what we can predict about the stuff in this article based on what Nintendo's actually said and done:

1. Gyroscopic tilt-sensing control is the most persistent rumor about the Nintendo Revolution (get it? "Revolution"?) and probably the most reasonable. Nintendo's apparently made some decent sized investments in that area, and this probably isn't just for Wario Ware Twisted. However this likely will not be the only unique feature of the Revolution.
   
   
2. The Nintendo DS WILL have connectivity with the Nintendo Revolution. We know this because Nintendo said so. Shortly before E3, shortly before the "it's a handheld with two screens" thing was announced, Nintendo explicitly said "we will be announcing at E3 a product which is neither a new Gamecube nor a new Game Boy, but will be able to connect wirelessly BOTH to the next gamecube and the next game boy". This is a paraphrase and I don't have a link, sorry; it might be possible to find one by looking through gaming news archives around that date. But this is the main problem with this set of rumors this slashdot story links; Nintendo probably wouldn't go back on a statement like that, and there isn't a clear reason why they would. If they don't, though, there's one obvious side-effect: The Revolution will have 802.11. There's no other way to connect to the DS.
   
   
3. Since if Nintendo keeps their word about the DS, 802.11 will be in the Revolution, well, that's out-of-the-box broadband potential right there. However we can't guess anything about how Nintendo will make use of this, if at all. All we really know about the online in the gamecube is what Reggie Fuls-Aime said in an interview a month or two ago (sorry, no link), where he put forth a very cryptic statement in which he said "online is a failed business model", then a couple sentences later said the next Nintendo console would have "long distance" and "community" gameplay features. So don't get your hopes up on anything, but expect whatever the internet features in the N5 are, they won't look like Xbox Live. What I'd almost suspect is that they're going to pull an online plan out of their ass and then try to insist on0 calling it something other than "online" (cuz, see.. it's wireless.. since there aren't any "lines".. get it).
   
   
4. The bit in the rumor about HD-DVD discs is incredibly unlikely. Nintendo hasn't yet announced who will be making the optical discs for the Revolution, but most likely it will be matsushita/panasonic. Matsushita manufactured the optical drive for the Gamecube, and it seems extremely likely Nintendo would go back to them for the optical drives for the N5; one, the drives worked extremely well, and are the chief reason why the Gamecube is the only console of this generation without a piracy problem; two, they'll probably have to go back to Matsushita if they want the Revolution's drive to be backward compatible with the Gamecube. The reason this is important is that Matsushita is one of the primary driving companies behind Blu-Ray. So most likely, the N5 will use proprietary deformed blu-ray discs, the same way that the Gamecube used little deformed DVD discs.