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Editorials   Nintendo's Revolution
- By Lander Clinton

Project Reality, Project Dolphin, Project Nitro, Revolution.

These are the code names of Nintendo's recent systems. In case you're wondering, that would be the N64, the GameCube, the Nintendo DS (still not an official name) and Nintendo's GameCube successor, which will no doubt be called the Super Nintendo GameCube when finally released.

GameCube was named Dolphin because it used a "Flipper" chip. The DS is called Nitro in the development community because... I don't know, it sounds cool? "Nitro" isn't very Nintendo though, it's more of a Sega artificial cool, but who cares. The two other names are the most important. Project Reality was aptly named because of its predecessor. Compared to Super Nintendo, the N64 created realistic worlds instead of flat television games.

Yay! Here comes my point! I think Nintendo has intentionally picked "Revolution" as a way to build curiosity about what features the next system will have, beyond being a pumped-up GameCube. At the introduction of the GCN, Shigeru Miyamoto repeatedly said that the GameCube would be an evolution over the N64, much like the difference between NES and SNES. It would not be the revolution that was created when Nintendo went from SNES to N64. Recently Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has caught a lot of flak for saying that prettier graphics will not yield the same returns they once did. Guess what? He's right. There comes a point when the average person can't tell which realistic model has better graphics.

People assumed Iwata was conceding that Nintendo's next system would not be able to compete with Microsoft and Sony, and maybe not even the GameCube, but we know that it will play GameCube games, so it has to be at least as powerful as our beloved purple cube. Also, Nintendo, since being run by Iwata, has courted third party developers like never before. If Nintendo wants non-Nintendo, but popular games on their system, they have to make it comparable to PS3 and NextBox so developers can port games without spending time and money, so don't worry about the next system's specs. It's just Nintendo being modest.

Once again, Nintendo has proven that it's the games, stupid. Iwata said that when they showed the DS at E3, maybe only 10% of the people would like it or understand it, but it turned out to be the talk of the show. The DS cannot do graphically what the PSP can do, but it already looks like it's damn close, and with small screens, who can tell the difference anyway? The DS can do so many other things that it makes the PSP look like a joke. The PSP is a product of old thinking: increase the graphics to increase the sales. Nintendo said that when developing the DS, they started by thinking how they can fundamentally change the controller for games, so they can offer a new way of playing. Developers will be thinking of new uses for the DS long after the PSP demolishes its last battery. With a nickname like "Revolution," we can expect Nintendo's next console to offer new ways of playing games, while still being able to do at LEAST what the GameCube can do. Will it be a leap comparable to the one of SNES to N64? Maybe not graphically, but the functionality leap will probably be like GBA to DS.

On a side note, I'd like to state that the least talked-about function of the DS that I believe will offer the most possibilities, is the inclusion of two cartridge slots, one for DS games and one for GBA games. I think we'll see the most original thinking from developers about what to do with that extra space. Rumble pak? No problem. Two games at once? Maybe, not sure how it all works. That's what makes the DS so interesting- its limits are imagination.