The 1up article was very enlightening. Read it in its entirety before commenting! I'm extremely surprised (as I'm sure we all are) but after careful deliberation I'm delighted to see game control finally moving in a different direction.

The X was there because what was shown was a demo, and it showed the maximun distance, not the exact point. That is, you were able to go nearer, but not farther than that cross, according to reviews.

For your next statement, I quote myself ;-)

At the end of the day, a good interface is one that stops feeling like an interface so that from that point on you don't think "I want to move left - that means... the A key - I'll press the A key" but instead just "I want to move left - I am moving left". The means of communication stops entering your conscious mind. The true test of the Nintendo controller will be how well it is able to do that but the test the market will apply is whether it looks stupid. Which it does.

For my money, I see it becoming uncomfortable for more than short periods of play. Which will completely defeat any control transparency. The market is also usually hostile to this sort of thing - for example towards the Sega Activator or almost any of the various fishing controllers. How many people do you know that have one?

Of course it is nonsensical to ask how the games we are used to will be adapted to the thing because that really isn't what it is for. With that in mind I don't see the Revolution as a gaming device as we currently understand them. Consider trying to play International Superstar Soccer on it, or even any existing Mario game. As that isn't going to happen, the Revolution is simply not a product targetted at me or at most of the existing game market.

I expect Nintendo will open up their own unique little market for this and continue being what they are now - a profitable but unimportant little company remembered for being a bully when it used to be a giant.

Well it wasn't innovative in that nothing like it had been seen before, but it's fair enough to say that the earlier efforts had not caught a mass market audience - so it was an innovative application of an existing idea. See, e.g. the Voltmace sticks for the Acorn computers - which even included a proper ADC converter for their joystick rather than a PC style quick, but incredibly clever, hack.

What's probably more interesting is how quickly Nintendo's quick idea appeared on the other consoles. No doubt if the Revolution controller works then it's general ethic won't be a Nintendo exclusive idea for long.

But will the thing ship with a Gamecube controller, or will you simply be cutting off 90% of Nintendo's already terminally declining market share?

A funny quote from Nintendo, courtesy of the BBC: "If we can't [convert new users to gaming who were scared off by the fast pace of existing games], we might as well stand back and watch the market die off" - Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata. Typical Nintendo, confusing their fiefdom for the entire market!

Well, if you want a more old school type gameplay:

My initial reaction was "WTF!?" too. But then I read the articel and now I think I'll have to start saving... no, start getting a job is more like it!

Is this an oblique reference to Nintendo's 1991 pronouncment that they didn't intend to bring the SNES to Europe for a few years because they thought the 8bit market still had a lot of life in it? Of course they quickly reversed that little idea, surprising as it was given that they probably never made a profit with the NES in Europe anyway.

NES: didn't work in Europe. Well known for maintaining dominance using illegal measures, such as locking third party companies into not producing the same titles for other consoles for two years and for tight control over who was allowed to produce how many copies of what and how many titles they could bring to the market in a year.

Game boy: came to market after the Atari Lynx. The Lynx design was complete and ready to be shipped in 1987 at which point it was shown to various industry insiders and bought by Atari who cleverly sat on it for two years.

SNES: Sega had a 16bit console. NEC claimed to have one. Nintendo made one. Which was good, because otherwise who would have been innovative enough to remove the blood from Mortal Kombat or cleverly sign deals for a CD addon with two separate big multinationals then release neither?

No it's not. But if a console comes with one particular controller and is marketed around that controller with most of the first party titles (which are all that really matter on Nintendo consoles now anyway) being designed exclusively for that controller do you suppose that controller or the legacy support for the old style controller will be more prevalent amongst users?

I think the power button is indented in the controller so you would probably just slide over it.

I was thinking the same thing about the analogue stick.

Well, I think that the console will require you to confirm the shutdown if you do that in the middle of a game (i.e. not in idle mode). At least that would be a good decision in my opinion.

Oh, I suppose that's a distinct possibility. Go figure.

The test the ,aerket will aplly is not really "does it look stupid". The market will take a look at the controll say "ooooooooooah?" then look at the graphics and puy the PS3 which they wanted to bu anyway, because the advertisment told them so.

True... but still, that would be dang annoying, especially if it was relativly easy to push. Perhaps there will be a way to tell the revoltion not to respond to "remote" shutdown commands during a game?

Indeed, but that seems highly doubtful. Doing so would instantly negate a major selling point to third party developers: control options. Although Nintendo has done some rather idiotic things in the past... we'll just have to see.

Don't drink and type, kids! Sorry, I had to say that.