Is that just a fancy way of saying this is a simple toy?
It's true, Nintendo has this unshakable image of being a family-friendly company that makes kiddy games. But to outright call the Revolution childish is insane. No one accuses Pixar's family movies of catering to kids but not adults. Nintendo operates in the same way, appealing to anyone who's looking for a solid game to play. With the Revolution you'll still see plenty of impractically-sized guns blowing chunks out of people and lavish landscapes ripe for exploration, but they'll share space with Mario and his undeniable fun-for-everyone outings. Don't act like you didn't waste hours of the day with old Nintendo systems. And even if you didn't, you'll be able to catch up with a grab bag of classic games tucked away on the Revolution.
So does it play all the old games or something?
Well, the Revolution can hit the Internet right away using Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection. Once online, you'll have access to downloadable NES, Super NES and Nintendo 64 games. That's 20 years of gaming goodness on one machine. Right now it's referred to as the "Virtual Console." There's no set price for the downloads or even a concrete list of which games are coming, but expect some serious old-school gaming,like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past,to make a big-time return.
Okay, wait. It uses a remote control but also has all these old games on it?
Yeah, it would be tough to convert Super Mario 64 onto the wand, wouldn't it? For those older games, and even for new ones that wouldn't translate well to a motion-sensitive device, there'll be a controller shell that cradles the wand and adds a familiar button layout. This wand/controller mash-up should combine the motion benefits with a few traditional buttons to satisfy gamers who just can't let the old ways go. Nintendo's gone on the record and said the most inventive developers will try to use only the wand, but we're gonna go ahead and predict a fair amount of shellage going on. Don't ask what it looks like, because probably only two people know: the god of video games and Santa Claus.
