Knight Games

Well now, Nintendo has finally revealed their "super seekrit" controller for the upcomming console, the Revolution. It looks like a remote control, and it works like a magic wand. Sensors around the TV detect the movements of the controller so that you can make guestures with it to control what's going on the screen. It sure is revolutionary, I'll give the credit for being unique. I'm sure it's going to do well for the games that are designed for it, however, I worry about cross-platform games that are being developed for multiple consoles.

Right now a good 40-50% of the GameCube's games library are cross-platform games, but if Revolution has a freaky-weird controller, it may make it difficult for developers to make games that work both for it and for the PS3/Xbox360. Developers could chose not to support the Revolution if they will have to radically redesign the controls just for that platform. If this happens, the Revolution could have even fewer games on it than the GameCube, which already pales compared to the number of games out for PS2 or even Xbox.

BTW, this is not the first controller to try the "move the controller to move what's on screen" trick. I have an old late 90's gamepad for the PC that had a motion sensor in it so that if you tilted it in different directions you could do things on screen. About the only game it was good for was Motorcross Madness, where you could do mid-air tricks by tilting the controller different ways while jumping your cycle.

This is a very interesting article that discusses why the gaming industry is paving the way for its own destruction. It's long. Take 10 minutes and read it, though, it's a very good read.

My own initial reaction was that he ignores the existence of the indie game developer and the internet's role in that equation. But we'll see, there's supposed to be a part 2 soon.