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Revolution Details By End of Year
Reuters is reporting that Nintendo will announce the price, launch date, and further details about their next generation console by the end of this year. Their tight-lipped attitude this E3 is apparently an attempt to ensure they don't tip their hand to rivals. From the article: "Some gamers and industry analysts had criticized Nintendo for providing sparse details on the new machine, comparing it to
Sony and Microsoft's unveiling of slicker, graphic-intense next-generation machines...Iwata said the new console is aimed at customers who hate clutter and find current games and the controllers used to play them to be confusing and difficult."
From what I hear, they should be fairly solid. They aren't the IR controllers of the past that required line of sight...and quite frankly were awful. But I don't think they are going to force you to use wireless controllers. Just get a wired controller and don't worry about it.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
"No offense man, but if you can't master circle, triangle, X, and square...you aren't going to do much better with A, B, C, D."
Not true. At least with AB/XY, there's a pattern to it. With Sony's Lucky Charms shapes, you have to memorize specifically where each shape is. Eventually it isn't a big deal, but it sure made getting to know my Playstation a lot of unnecessary fun.
"I have never had a problem accidentally hitting shoulder buttons."
L3 isn't a shoulder button. If you push down on the left analog stick (which often happens if you're DRIVING), *click* there it goes. Half the time when I'm in hot pursuit in San Andreas, my car horn's honking. Really f'n annoying.
"Maybe it is just you. I suggest trying an Atari. It has one button and a joystick. Don't get too upset if you accidentally hit its only button though."
That's a pretty bold statement for somebody that hasn't dented any of my points.
"Derp de derp."
Get her Yoshi's Island -- it's the Trojan Horse to girls playing video games. "Awwww, Mario's a cute widdle baby! OK, I guess I'll give it a try..."
Pretty soon she'll be humiliating you in Mortal Kombat 2. Seriously, your penis will shrink.
Sony and MS, capturing the imaginations of gamers with specs? Nintendo has captured, and is capturing the imaginations of gamers by WITHHOLDING specs. And their whole tease campaign about their controllers has got a whole lot of gamers going back and forth with guesses, mockups, and even hoaxes. Sony and MS have left _nothing_ to gamers' imaginations. We know just about everything there is to know about both in terms of hardware, and the software announcements that were made following both hardware unveilings did NOTHING to drum up excitement for either console. I'd go so far as to say that revealing the design of the PS3 controller was to Sony detriment, since it is ass-ugly and reminds those of us who have held similarly-styled "boomerang" controllers how bad they are (there have been dozens of similar third-party designs for PS and PC, all of which felt uncomfortable).
Consider this: The Revolution is so much smaller than the other two, has already been announced to be backwards compatible with GameCube and all older Nintendo home consoles, and will probably be cheaper than the other two systems. On top of that, the rumor is that it will be between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in overall power (which is not too shabby, since even the Xbox 360 looks like it will be a powerhouse, despite its strange, bandwidth-constrained unified memory arch). Zelda, Mario, and Smash Bros. were announced, with Smash Bros. being a launch title. Without knowing much more than this, plenty of people in the non-Nintendo-specific forums have been promising that the Revolution is a guaranteed sale, while their decisions to buy the either of the other two are dependent on software. The excitement continues to build, without Nintendo revealing so much as a picture of the controller. That's not just the easiest thing for them to do, it's also the smartest.