We aren't happy. We never are. Our throw-away culture constantly encourages us to always look for The Next Big Thing. Just look at the PSP � a lovely fresh slice of gaming goodness released just a few weeks ago that's already started to go stale in the minds of gamers. The Xbox 360 ("360" is for the predicted sales figures in Japan) will be all the rage over here at Christmas � only to be relegated to the back of our minds and cupboards when Nintendo announce the Revolution date.

But maybe this mindset is why Nintendo has such a huge amount of loyal followers. After all, they always seem intent on creating new ways to play � trying to satisfy our relentless demand for something fresh and exciting. The recently unveiled "Revolution" controller is testament to that. It's ingenious, by my estimation. It could well redefine videogames as we know them. It gives the more passionate fans among us reason to spit in the faces of all those who doubted Nintendo - and, perhaps best of all, the already famous "nunchaku" attachment can rival the PS3 controller/boomerang in combat. All across the globe, gamers are congratulating the Big N on a job well done.

Initial photos of the new controller were a little perplexing though. I don't think anybody was expecting this top secret, groundbreaking new interface to look like a television remote. It was a clever decision by those boffins at Nintendo � something so unusual wrapped in a very familiar package. It doesn't really look very revolutionary at all.

Of course, if Nintendo had chosen to include glowing green antennae, a pair of protruding bicycle handles and a toaster strapped to the back, they probably would have been laughed at. All of their loyal followers would buy one anyway � hell, if it looked like that, I would pre-order straight away � but they need to make sure that the controller looks reassuring and familiar enough to the masses in order to tempt them to have a go. If it's the videogames equivalent of the weird looking loner at school who sits in the corner picking his nose, most people will avoid it. And Nintendo are clearly thinking carefully about where they stick their finger.

Of course, all of those "hardcore gamers" would buy the Revolution anyway, because Nintendo make Mario and Zelda and Donkey Kong and so they are the best. Yadda yadda yadda. But when Nintendo presents us with a whole range of new possibilities, we don't start thinking about its potential for fresh entertainment. Instead, we think about how great the next Metroid game will be. If Nintendo had gone the other way and promised not to include any of their major franchises until a year after console launch, how many of us would buy the console then? We praise Nintendo for their revolutionary new machine, and yet we wouldn't buy it without the promise of a new Zelda game.

We always seem to look to the old when we're on the brink of something new. We call for a revolution from Nintendo, but instead it feels more like a reformation � we want a completely new machine that plays games based on twenty year old franchises. Nintendo are well known for wringing every last drop of blood from their IPs, and we let them do it. We moan about how stale games are becoming, and yet we buy every game with the word "Mario" emblazoned on the front. It was exactly the same with the DS � "what franchises do you want to see" threads sprung up on more message boards than I could easily count. What does it take to truly interest us in something fresh?

The middle ground, it seems, would be to make old franchises feel new; inject a creative spin into older ideas. Nintendo can do that � we know they can. But with our so-called Revolution, we'll be playing the same old games with a different control method. Who else can envision Mario Party 9 or Donkey Konga! Conductor's Baton appearing in a year or two? Sounds like a safe bet to me.

Sure, we'll have our quirky little imaginative titles and new gameplay ideas � but the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will certainly have them too. Even if the remote control is enough to spark the imagination of developers, we're all still going to buy Zelda Revolution. Another Super Mario game will sell many a console. We're all conformists at heart, and we don't like to take a chance on something new � when we buy our Revolution console, we want to see Mario's moustached visage assuring us that we've been here before. The DS had Super Mario 64 launch alongside it; anyone care to guess why? I could count the "revolutionary" DS titles on one hand. They aren't enough to distract us from glorified Tamagotchis or N64 platformers.

It's more than a case of wanting both the old and the new. I don't think that we, as Nintendo fans, actually know what we want anymore. We rely on Nintendo to satisfy our need for entertainment that is simultaneously fresh and familiar; a step forward on a treadmill. The franchises we love sell games at the expense of the creativity we yearn. Nintendo can't win.

And neither can we. Because we're never happy.

James Hamilton
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