NintendoRevolution
Latest
Revolution stand not a power supply
It seems that we were right to be skeptical about an article in Nintendo Official Magazine which claimed that the Revolution's stand acted as an aesthetically pleasing power brick. Nintendo has officially dismissed the story with a leisurely wave of the hand, pointing out that "It was a small production error in the magazine," and that they have yet to announce anything about the machine's power supply. It's nice to know that blatantly incorrect facts in an official magazine can be deemed as a "small production error."A Nintendo official went on to say that the Revolution stand is actually capable of firing laser beams, making pancakes and reading RSS feeds.[Update: The above paragraph is entirely false. We apologize for the small production error.]
More mockups: Revolution packaging
There's just no stopping the onslaught of speculative, photoshopped images when it comes to the impending release of a secretive console. Nintendo's Revolution is no different, having spawned more bizarre renderings and zany controller designs than you can, well...shake a stick at. With the controller cat out of the bag, the masters of image manipulation had to move on and find their inspiration elsewhere. Though the Revolution's potential interface provided some interesting results, these mockups for the Revolution's box over at Nintendo Gal have to be seen to be believed (or rather not--they're fake). Check out the entire set after the link.[Thanks Jason!]
Reggie interview: Over 1,000 Revo dev kits sent out
In Engadget's most excellent interview with Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo's VP of Sales & Marketing, it is revealed that Nintendo have already sent out in excess of 1,000 Revolution controller development kits, allowing potential software creators to try their hand at the Japanese giant's great gaming gamble. If anything, this shows that there could very well be loads of third-party developer support for the Revolution, at least to a much greater degree than what the Gamecube experienced. Reggie goes on to say that "The response to the controller has been fantastic. Developers are truly embracing the innovation. They’re embracing the approach and quite frankly, they’re embracing our vision; our vision of creating games that are as sophisticated as the core gamer wants it to be but could also be as straightforward and as accessible as brand new gamers." Another point worth mentioning is Reggie's continually changing stance regarding Gamecube games being played on the new console. Reggie tells us here that Gamecube games will only function with Gamecube peripherals and not with the Revo controller. Where does that leave Twilight Princess? Well, we're going to stick to our guns and suggest that a Revolution "Twilight Princess: Special Edition" will be running straight into the crossfire come E3. Click the link for more interview goodness.
Epic Games interested in Revolution
In a transformation that's likely to be reflective of many a narrow-minded gamer, Epic Games' VP, Mark Rein, has rapidly gone from gimmick-loathing skeptic to accepting and interested party with regards to Nintendo next-generation offering. In a recent CVG interview, Mr. Rein stated that not only was he looking forward to seeing the Revolution's technical specifications, but that his company had contacted Nintendo and expressed interest in the machine. Now, whether or not this could be considered as legitimate interest and not just a subtle marketing band-aid is up for debate. We've heard plenty of rumors about Unreal Engine 3 running on the Revolution, rumors which now seem rather rickety when held up against this interview. After all, if Epic's graphical tour-de-force was really ready for the system, why would the engine developer still be awaiting information on the system's capabilities? I'm no technical genius, but I think it's fair to say that you'd have to know a machine's specifications before you could get your brand new graphics engine working on it. Or is that an unrealistic expectation? (Ack! A pun!)
Twilight Princess to be "magical" on Revolution
Since we've danced about this issue with Reggie before, we feel that we're quite familiar with the steps by now. This EGM interview scan shows Reggie strongly alluding to some Revolution enhancements to what is undoubtedly Nintendo's flagship title for this generation. In fact, the only thing missing here is wanton winking and a mildly painful elbow jab to the rib. C'mon, just admit it! It seems that Nintendo's marketing cyborg is the only one that doesn't blatantly exclaim what a great idea it is to make the massively anticipated (and delayed) Twilight Princess a pseudo-launch title for the Revolution. It's sure to satisfy Gamecube fans staring at all the blank spaces on their console's release list, and it's just the kind of powerful franchise a launching console needs to usher in its capabilities and ideals. As the man says: Any Nintendo fan would love to see that.[Thanks dsub!]
Koei executive laments Revo's lack of hard drive
While speaking at the recently held Asian Online Game Conference in Tokyo, Kenji Matsuhara, an executive overseeing Koei's online gaming endeavors, expressed some disappointment in the Revolution's hardware design. He noted that the decision to implement Flash memory, as opposed to a large hard drive, would create difficulties when creating Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs for the system. While this statement hardly rules out the possiblitly of the genre making a revolutionary appearance, one has to wonder whether or not it ever had a place on the console to begin with.One of Nintendo's primary aims with the Revolution is to eliminate unnecessary complexity, wiping the slate clean and inviting casual gamers back into the fold. Games that are easy to understand, pick up and play are what you're likely to find on the Revolution, not adventures that require considerable time and dedication before bearing numerical fruit. This isn't to say that traditional MMORPGs aren't fun or welcome, only that they don't quite match up with Nintendo's aspirations and intended audience. Of course, there's no reason to think that we won't eventually see a game in the genre adapted to fit the both the Revolution's technical capabilities and its gameplay philosophies. A more robust Animal Crossing, anyone? (Note to Koei: Make a Guitaroo-Man sequel for the Revolution. Do it now.)[Via Revolution Report]
Revolution controller in Phoenix Wright?
Whilst playing the most excellent Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, I came across the dramatic scene pictured above. In the hilarious courtroom adventure's first chapter, Phoenix has to carefully debunk the testimony of one Mr. Sahwit, a shifty fellow who claims to have discovered the bludgeoned body of a model in her apartment. Look carefully at the supposed cordless telephone to the right. Doesn't it look a tad familiar, almost like a certain revolutionary controller? Note to self: Nerd!
Revolution Spotting: It's in the testimony, Your Honor
I was playing the most excellent DS game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, when I was presented with the above image. In the hilarious courtroom adventure's first chapter, Phoenix has to carefully debunk the testimony of one Mr. Sahwit, a shifty fellow who claims to have discovered the bludgeoned body of a model in her apartment. Upon attempting to contact the police, he realizes that the nearby cordless phone does not work and instead rushes to a payphone in a park. Though the evidence suggests that the phone was non-functional due to a power failure, I have a different (and embarassingly lighthearted) theory: That's no telephone, it's the Revolution controller! Note to self: Nerd!
Confirmed: Revolution shoots laser beams
We've known for quite a while that the Revolution was sneakily harboring yet another secret, though we never expected it to be quite this amazing. At long last, the veil has been lifted to reveal...laser beams coming right at you! If a Gamespot forum poster going by the name of "MicrosoftISdumb" is to be trusted (And why not? He seems entirely reputable!), Nintendo's next innovation is the very first and very astonishing implementation of laser beam technology in a console. After an extremely long-winded bout of praising Nintendo's philosophy and dredging up quotes out of context, the post author makes a spectacular claim: You see, these aren't the deadly laser beams you've come to associate with poorly written science-fiction shows. Oh no, these are beams of pure, sensuous, visual pleasure. Similar to technology developed by a company called Light Blue Optics, a laser mini-projector comes attached to the Revolution, with its magical beams truly bringing your action-adventures and cooking sims to startling life. It'll project all sorts of games and movies right into your living room, making you feel as if you're actually there.Make no mistake, this is Earth-shattering news. It blows most of our past theories out of the water, illustrating yet again how accurate and reliable information gleamed from random users on an internet message board can be. Backed up by considerable laser power, there's no way the Revolution could possibly fail.[Thanks Ph[i]l!]
More unsubstantiated Revolution info emerges
This time it's from consolewars.de, calmly claiming to have exclusive access to all manner of Revolution tidbits but failing to mention who exactly their "reliable" developer source is. This means, of course, that it could all be made up. Regardless, we know that you want to know what they know, and that you know that we'll be happy to tell you what we know about what they know. Now. Apparently, the Revolution controller functions on the Gamecube if the development kits are any indication. We've heard that the development kits are essentially jazzed up Gamecubes, but that hardly indicates that the retail console has the hardware or software necessary to interpret the Revolution 3D space requirements. In terms of technological power, the development kits aren't far removed from the Gamecube. This fits in with what several developers have noted, namely that the Revolution isn't that powerful. Even though non-final development kits aren't always to be trusted, cutting-edge graphics were never what Nintendo had in mind for the Revolution. Though it would have to be scaled down, Unreal Engine 3 can run on the Revolution hardware. This should allay the graphical fears of some, but it depends an awful lot on just how much "scaling down" were talking about. Nintendo might offer an Opera-like browser for the Revolution. We've heard this one before. The controller is finished and fully functional, though the development kit is still connected through a serial port. We imagine that'll be gone for the final version. It also functions like a 3D mouse, with actions like swordfighting working very intuitively. Let me guess. Light sabers. The console uses a "low-power" G5 processor. That seems like it would be a standard placeholder chip used exclusively in the development kit. ATi has previously stated that the Revolution's chipset would be built completely from scratch and differ greatly from traditional computer architecture. The Revolution is thicker that an Apple Powerbook. Well, that seems random and not quite as catchy as the "3 DVD stack" size description we've come to accept. It can't play DVDs right out of the box. Instead, you need to attach a seperately purchased dongle. This is one of the things Satoru Iwata mentioned when the Revolution was first unveiled during E3 2005. Needless to say, you should be absolutely covered in salt by now.[Via GoNintendo]
Gaming professionals respond to Revo controller
In their Question of the Week feature, Gamasutra recently asked their audience what kinds of games would be most suited to the Revolution controller and which specific concepts they'd like to see using it in the future. The overall response?"OMG the Lightsaberz0rz are teh rule!"Not that there's anything wrong with prancing around the room and hacking off limbs with a beam of light, but we feel that the Revolution has a bit more potential than merely indulging us in our geeky Star Wars fantasies (though admittedly, that's an important feature of any console). Luckily, some of the other responses raised some more interesting issues. "My big fear is that the Revolution is going to over-popularize shallow physical gaming such that everyone starts doing it and suddenly cooking simulators and orchestra-conducting games are going to be popping up on all formats," says Lionhead's impossibly named Tadhg Kelly. This is known as the Eyetoy phenomenon, where developers get stuck on gimmicky features and fail to take true advantage of the platform's capabilities. We have no doubt that several lazy developers will be satisfied with releasing shallow adventures in fishing, fly-swatting and carpentry--that's just the nature of this kind of technology. Fortunately, we won't be buying lame games like that. We'd rather go for intricate, first-person Harry Potter role-playing games."Imagine having to speak the spell you want to cast, and using different wand movements to create variations on the spell (maybe the closer you are to a 'correct' movement the more powerful it is, or maybe you can flick it in different directions to throw people about)." Ben Droste from Krome Studio sure makes a convincing pitch for the next Harry Potter film tie-in which, just like the previous entries, will be "the darkest one yet." Finally, the prize for most spot-on comment goes to Johnnemann Nordhagen, who works for SCEA of all companies. "Trying to shoehorn existing genres into the controller concept is not the exciting part of the new system, although I don't doubt we'll see some excellent interpretations of things like RTS games. To me, the promise of the new controller is that it allows new types of games." If the Revolution hosts nothing but old genres with new controller schemes, it wouldn't exactly be living up to its namesake. The whole point of reinventing the controller is to allow for gameplay that couldn't possibly work on traditional controllers. You know, like lightsaber duels.
Orb developer interview
With all the vague Revolution declarations we've had in the last few weeks, it comes as a refreshing gush of air to see someone actually fully committing to developing a Revolution game. The squares over at Cubed3 have posted an interview with just such a developer, Crossbeam Studios Entertainment, politely quizzing them about their forthcoming first-person RPG adventure, Orb. Though the game has yet to find a publisher or a Revolution development kit, it's already being designed with Nintendo's console in mind. This isn't the first time we've seen a small team of developers making Revolution games on their mouse-driven computers, but it raises some fears as to whether or not it's a good idea to count your eggs before they've hatched. After all, there's a chance that no publisher will take interest in the game at hand--even Nintendo might politely decline."The only thing that worries me is Nintendo has thrown out far too many game ideas because they think it won't fly, when in fact they are great ideas. They are too scared of not making it. "While that doesn't really sound like the Nintendo we know, there is a certain level of quality expected before you get that famous golden seal of approval stamped on your game. Let's hope things turn out well for Orb. If not, there's always Xbox Live Arcade to fall back on...
Revolution power supply speculation
Where does the Revolution get its power from? Well, in addition to the vast resource that is the laughter of children all across the world, electricity plays a reasonably important role in getting the console to turn on and emit its various beeps and boops. Nothing shocking about that, right? According to a recent posting on the GAF forums, however, the console may use an interesting method of getting its power from your wall socket.The information comes from the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK and it states that the Revolution stand actually acts as a power supply, effectively turning a humongous power brick into an aesthetically pleasing part of the design. It seems like a solid and attractive idea, but something doesn't quite add up. If the stand is the only way of powering the Revolution, the console is restricted to a vertical position--bad news for those with cramped entertainment stands. The news also doesn't match up with the Revolution's patent drawings, which clearly show the machine having a traditional port for a power cable and little pads on the side to allow for horizontal placement. If there's any indication of a power connector on the actual stand, we can't see it. While the scan from the magazine could have easily been manipulated into a hoax, it may be possible that the author of the article was privy either to a newly designed stand with a power cable running from the back....or a large cache of drugs. We thought about Nintendo selling a rechargeable power stand for truly wireless gaming purposes, but even that seems a little too far-fetched. [Thanks, Christopher!]
HD or not, the Revolution (fanboy) has begun!
What a week for Weblogs; no sooner does EngagetMobile hit the stage and now we see the launch of the Revolution Fanboy site! So what if the new Nintendo console might not output 1080p like the Playstation 3, you can't mess with the success of little plumber-dude named Mario, now can you? Besides, with all of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray ruckus in the other console camps, Nintendo might just pull off a major gaming coup later this year while Microsoft and Sony focus too hard on each other. Rock on Revolution!
Capcom vaguely commits to the Revolution
Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. For some reason, developers seem to enjoy answering in ambiguous, wishy-washy and altogether non-committal ways when questioned about the Revolution. "Ah, yes, I've heard of the Revolution. It's very exciting." "Are you developing for it?" "I'd love to!" "Is that a yes?" "Well, it has this wacky new controller...I bet we could do really amazing things with it." "Is that a yes?" "I think it's wonderful that Nintendo is trying something out there, you know?" "Are you going to answer the question?" "I'd love to!" "Is that a yes?" And so it goes. Speaking to the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK, Capcom developers did little to buck the trend and offered some insight into their vague plans. Atsushi Inaba (President of Clover Studios) said that Nintendo had not formally asked about a Viewtiful Joe title as of yet, though he would be delighted to oblige if they did. He expressed interest in utilizing the controller for Joe's actions, as well as some uncertainty as to how exactly the many VFX powers would be implemented. Minae Matsukawa (Producer of Phoenix Wright) pointed out how cool it would be to develop for the Revolution, but that he was far too busy with the French localization of Ace Attorney to commit to a next-gen entry in the franchise. Finally, Tsukasa Takenake (Designer of Mega Man Battle Network 5) had the most interesting thing to say: If fans want a first-person perspective Mega Man game on the Revolution, he'd be willing to give it a (charge) shot. Interesting! In summary, it looks like we can, with a fair degree of certainty, expect Capcom to probably make some kind of Revolution game at some point. Maybe. We're sure they'd love to. [Via Ownage.nl, GameFront]
Web browsing on the Revolution?
Following the grand revelation that melancholy and overly dramatic Internet browser, Opera, was appearing on the Nintendo DS stage, Nintendo Gal was left wondering if the Revolution would be privy to the same. Naturally, the only thing required to clear up the matter was a phone call to Nintendo of America. The result?"Revolution owners will have the option to purchase that functionality."Well, that was easy. Since the Revolution is already equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities and plenty of storage, we imagine a simple software purchase to be the only thing standing in the way of enjoying the web from the comfort of your couch. We also think the term "point-and-click" will be especially appropriate when it comes to navigating pages with the Revolution controller. [Via Joystiq]
Tecmo tees off on Revolution
GamersReports, uh, reports that Tecmo has revealed their very first Revolution title in the form of Pangya, an obscenely colorful golf game filled to the brim with saucer-eyed anime characters and warmly dressed polar bear things (obviously). According to Tecmo, the game will be a port of the popular and online-enabled PC version, though we expect it to be considerably enhanced for the Revo's unique controller.It is a golf game, after all. Swing the controller, swing the club--the connection really isn't difficult to make. Check out the game's official website over here.
Introducing Revolution Fanboy!
There's a new Fanboy on the Joystiq block, and he's waving some sort of stick thing! Don't be alarmed. This is completely normal practice when it comes to the Revolution, Nintendo's wonderfully weird next-gen console. Unnervingly dedicated to analyzing news, unearthing secrets and embarassing themselves in public with wacky controllers, the crew of Revolution Fanboy are on the front lines of innovation's fight against corporate behemoths and lifeless sequels. Please give them your support and approving glances.
The Revolution Begins
Now, let's not jump to conclusions. The site says Revolution Fanboy, but do you truly know what it's about? Do you understand this blog's needs, its passions, its secret desires and its dreams? Of course you don't. Allow me to provide the answers to the questions already racing through your mind.Q: Revolution...what's that?A: It's when you overthrow one government and replace it with another. It's also a kind flea medication for cats and dogs.Q: Overthrowing the government? Where do I sign on?A: No no, this blog is about the Nintendo Revolution.Q: Nintendo is overthrowing the government?A: Not yet, but they're certainly stirring up some controversy in the gaming industry.Q: I'm still very interested in overthrowing the government. You had my hopes up back there.A: Well, we don't endorse that sort of thing.Q: And I don't endorse fanboys. I've heard of your kind.A: True, the term of "fanboy" has become a derogatory one as of late, but we're planning to change all that. In our minds, a fanboy has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and an irrepressible passion for gaming in all its forms, and this blog hopes to funnel those qualities towards the Nintendo Revolution. We've got the other machines within our peripheral vision and we respect them - it's just that we choose to make the Revolution the focal point of our internet investigations and our undoubtedly smug remarks. We're excited about it, that's all!Q: Ah, I understand. But what's with this "we" and "us" stuff? Aren't you just one guy?A: Well, no. Ludwig Kietzmann, Christopher Linton and Ed Stasick will be providing you with your Revolution fix. They're all mostly sane. Q: Now you're speaking in third-person....A: Oh yeah, well you don't even exist. We just made up all those questions as an introductory blog post. And...that wasn't even a question!Welcome to Revolution Fanboy. It's going to be interesting.
Twilight Princess: Revo controller support or not?
In what is quickly becoming a saga of operatic proportions, the issue regarding whether or not The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will use the Revolution's controller has now managed to go through several phases: It's been rumored, discussed, explored, rejected, embraced, confirmed, resolved, denied, counter-denied, buried under a mango tree somewhere in the Dominican Republic and finally, posted on a myriad of Nintendo-themed blogs. Just like this one.For those who have been unable to keep track of the whole thing either due to a lack of attention span or basic literacy (and we can certainly identify with that one), here's a short summary: NGC Magazine: Holy yes! You can use the Revolution's controller with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess!Nintendo: What? Uh, that's totally not true. You guys are a bunch of liars.NGC Magazine: It's true! Stop denying it! Jerks.Well, that's a rather crude compression of events, but it should be enough motivation to get you thinking about what would prompt a magazine to risk its reputation and go up against the word of the actual creators of the game. Have they lost their minds? Is Nintendo trying to keep a brilliant idea under wraps? A more detailed version of the story and my own vaguely coherent thoughts on this situation follows.
