A late night interview with Perrin Kaplan of NOA... come see what she had to say.

Of course, by now everyone has felt the reverberations of the Gigantor announcement Nintendo's Satoru Iwata dropped on the gaming industry during his TGS keynote. The Revolution controller... revealed. Many people are now left scratching their heads trying to make sense of it all. Luckily, the most excellent website Etoychest has stayed up late to talk Revolution with Nintendo's Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Perrin Kaplan. The full interview can be found right here on his site. Several choice excerpts have been extracted for your perusal. Questions are followed by Perrin's answer followed by my own comment:

eToyChest: Is this the final design for the controller? Or is this like how we saw the DS initially at E3, and when it finally came out it had been redesigned to make it more comfortable?

PK: No, this is not the final design. You won't see that until the release is here, but we are getting much closer. Just like what was seen with the DS the designers are continuing to work on the controller.

In other words, Nintendo product engineers are hard at work hammering out the ultimate look and durability of the controller as well as its ergonomics. I think its safe to say we are in good hands with this endeavour.

eToyChest: Will all games use the Revolution's unique controller, or will players be able to use the GameCube controller, for example, on new Revolution games?

PK: Yes, all Revolution games will use the new controller. Nintendo's idea is that it's all about creating the free and new experience, and the controller is central to that.

She went on to mention that third parties would not find it too difficult to calibrate their multiplatform games for the Revolution... an interesting claim that is certainly hard to take at face value when gazing on the controller. We will be watching closely on this development as one of the biggest complaints levied now against the Revolution will be its ability to retain third party support.

eToyChest: Do you know off-hand how, using the new controller, the Revolution's Super Smash Bros. will work?

PK: Off-hand, even if I did, I would rather just let players use their imaginations to think about how it could be played. The controller opens up a number of possibilities to control a game like Super Smash Bros. I know people want to know more, but now isn't the time. There really are just so many ways this controller could be used, and I think it'd be just more fun to see how players might imagine a game like that be controlled.

And imagine we shall... will Smash Bros. be radically altered? Will it have to be in the first place? One of the major points Ms. Kaplan reiterated was that the controller really would not feel so alien once it is in the hands, that rather it would feel very comfortable and obvious. Are we jumping to the conclusion that games as we understand them now are not possible with this controller? Then again, if the new scheme really lives up to its billing should we even care about the more established ways? Even if Smash Bros. could be configured to play as it always has, shouldn't it be tailored to fit the Revolution paradigm of control?

These are all interesting questions raised, and certainly a good deal more are brought up in the interview. Again, you can access that right here. To be sure however, answers are forthcoming. We just may have to brace ourselves for when they arrive. Thanks to eToyChest for the excellent and timely interview.