The 'hip' Microsoft corporate vice president J Allard has commented on the Revolution controller at the X05 conference in Amsterdam. Read what he had to say inside...

Interviewed by Gamespot, Allard brought up the Revolution controller first himself, defending the Xbox 360 from claims it was just another Xbox clone. "Heck, it's a lot better. It's next generation," Allard commented on the 360, before going on to say that if Microsoft were not going to "to change the category out completely and ... give you a wacky controller," hinting explicitly at the Revolution.

He went on to say it would be a "failing" to their users for Microsoft to give them "wacky games that [they] don't really understand".

Yet when directly asked about it later, Allard was more cautious. "I think it's well intentioned," he said. "I think it's brave for them to say, "We've got to make it more approachable." It's the same reason behind our DVD remote. At the press conference, I could have done my whole demo on the DVD remote. You're going to be able to play casual games on Live Arcade with the remote control."

"Maybe Nintendo will be ... persuasive and have more ideas on first party and that will take off. I don't know. ... [Though] I think that traditional control for traditional categories is going to be what drives the market."

On Nintendo's innovativeness, aimed at bringing new gamers in, he concluded it was "good to the extent that we think, "Yeah, we've got to do something like that, too, because now there's a category for third parties who really want to simplify control. That's good."