Oh my…

Looking at some fuss on The Chaos Engine about the newly released information on the Revolution controller. All I can say is “wow”. Seriously. If its as usable as it seems (and judging from the people relating first hand use accounts on TCE it is), then its got the potential to really appeal to a wider market than your average console.

For a brief synopsis, basically it’s shaped like a TV remote control (a rather small one) so it fits in your hand like a wand or a mobile phone. There are buttons all over it, and a d-pad, etc; but they aren’t the primary control mechanism. The primary control mechanism is internal sensors which detect the angle the controller is pointing. So full three degrees of freedom rotation, (including twisting). That immediately elevates it above the PC mouse as a pointing device (as mice can only support 2 degrees of freedom). So you’ve got a pointing device as flexible and instantly usable as a mouse, but in 3D. So all of those lovely fun little games that work well in 2D with a mouse (Pong, Tetris, point-and-click titles, etc.) can have their game-play mechanics extended into 3D without having to worry about controller dynamics! Not to mention, its apparently even more usable for first-person-shooters (a genre typically crippled by the average console controller) with the addition of a light, attached joystick to be held in the other hand. And I don’t think I really have to dwell on the coolness of a light-saber game based on a controller you can swing like a sword. Time to get that accidental damage cover for the fragile things in the living room…

Here’s a link to an external site with an advert for the controller (immediately underneath the main picture). Sorry the text isn’t in English, but I haven’t seen it copied many places yet. I’ll probably upda
te this entry if I find better links.

Anyway – wow again – I’m hoping other console manufacturers come up with clones or that this catches on. I’d certainly buy one for the PC in preference to my mouse for FPS games.

EDIT: more links

CNN
GameSpy
GameSpot

One Response to “Oh my…”

  1. PeterM Says:

    I was thinking about pestering you to vouch for me so I could join TCE, but then I realised – do I *really* need another forum in my life? Especially one filled with jaded developer types? :-p


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