Nintendo Produces New Remote Control

[korsjs]

CHIBA, Japan - Nintendo thinks it has the answer for people scared off by all the complex switches and buttons on home video-game controllers — a simpler device that looks like a TV remote control and can be waved like a wand or a baseball bat.

Nintendo showed off the controller at the Tokyo Game Show, which opened Friday and is turning into a showcase for the intensifying three-way battle among Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Co. Ltd. in next-generation video-game consoles.

"We thought about how everyone in the family uses the TV remote, but some people don't want to even touch the game controller," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said. "We want to set a new interface standard for games."

Iwata said games must appeal to a wider audience, including novices, if game creators hope to survive, but many people are intimidated by the many buttons now required to play.

The Kyoto-based company, famous for the Game Boy Advance handheld as well as the Super Mario and Pokemon games, has been introducing simpler-to-play games like the "Nintendogs" virtual-pet game for its Nintendo DS — a portable game machine with two screens, including a touch panel.

Equipped with a sensor at the end, the new Revolution wireless controller can be used as a virtual bat, sword, fishing rod or racket. In a demonstration video, an elderly couple were pretending to conduct an orchestra, while a younger person appeared to play a musical instrument or fire a gun.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. is also aggressively pushing its next-generation Xbox 360 at the show, determined not to repeat the dismal failure of its original Xbox console in Japan — home to some of the most devoted game fans in the world and a market dominated by Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).'s PlayStation.

Microsoft has sold 21.9 million Xbox machines globally since it went on sale three years ago, but only about 1.8 million of those were sold in Asia, including Japan.

For most Japanese, the home console of choice is still Sony. The Japanese electronics and entertainment company has sold 91 million PlayStation 2 consoles worldwide over the last five years, 21 million of them in Asia. More than a 100 million of the original PlayStations have been sold worldwide.

PlayStation 3, which will go on sale next year, will be powered by a new computer chip called "cell" that Sony says will also drive digital electronics products in the works. PlayStation 3 will also use the next generation video format called Blu-ray Disk.

Eiji Maeda, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo, said Xbox 360 has a good chance of chipping away at Sony's stronghold in Japan, although Xbox still lacks brand power here.

"Things may be difficult in Japan for Xbox 360 in the beginning, but it's probably going to put up a pretty good fight," Maeda said.

And Nintendo, with its brand appeal and ability to offer innovative products, will continue to hold its own and maintain its profits against the larger rivals, he said.

Microsoft announced the Japan price of its Xbox 360 Thursday — 37,900 yen, or about US$345, slightly less than the US$399.99 it's charging in the U.S. It will sell for euro399.99 in Europe.

The Xbox 360 is scheduled to start selling Nov. 22 in North America, Dec. 2 in Europe and Dec. 10 in Japan — beating the still unpriced PlayStation 3 to the stores.

To appeal to Japanese game fans, Microsoft has made more of a point this time of signing on designers popular here to make games exclusive for Xbox 360, such as "Final Fantasy XI."

"Ninety-Nine Nights," promised for January, allows players to control an acrobatic warrior that jumps and twirls while slashing hundreds of knights or "kills" with a sweep of a sword, accumulating points and rising to higher levels of virtual superpower.

"For players, it's all about the games. No one buys a game machine for its features," Yoshihiro Maruyama, who oversees the Xbox business in Japan, told The Associated Press recently.

Maruyama acknowledged it may take time to wrest people away from PlayStation games, and getting a head start alone won't be enough.

But he said he believes it's possible because he has witnessed Nintendo, once an industry leader in home consoles with the Family Computer, or Famicom, during the 1980s, eventually take a beating from Sony. Worldwide sales of Nintendo's home console GameCube lag behind PlayStation 2 and Xbox at about 18.8 million.

"I just don't think there's any brand loyalty in the video-game business," Maruyama said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050916/ap_on_hi_te/japan_game_show;_ylt=Ag5gDWtypg394el4XzgfY90jtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

 

[mwgiii]

Come on korsjs, I already posted the Revolution info.

 

[korsjs]

i saw it, but this was a new artilce on the controller. i don't like the contoller.

 

[korsjs]

here is more on the controller.

MAKUHARI, Japan (AFP) - Nintendo trumped its rivals at the start of an industry show by revealing a one-handed remote controller that stole attention from Microsoft's new Xbox games machine, which was demonstrated in public for the first time.

The device, which looks like a television remote control and is fitted with motion sensors, created the biggest buzz at the opening of the three-day Tokyo Game Show which is expected to attract 150,000 people.

Video-game aficionados, industry executives and glamorous models gathered Friday in this suburb of the Japanese capital were given a demonstration of the controller for Nintendo's next-generation Revolution machine.

By waving it around frenetically or gently swishing it through the air, players can kick, punch, jump or steer their way through the on-screen action, though not yet -- the Revolution and its software are still under development.

The controller, which was showcased in bright red, lime green, black, silver or white, can also be fitted with a joystick-type add-on. Several players can compete against each other simultaneously.

"The feeling is so natural and real, as soon as players use the controller, their minds will spin with the possibilities of how this will change gaming as we know it today," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who presented the new gadget to the show.

Nintendo dominates the market for handheld game machines with its Game Boy, which has sold 66.79 million worldwide, but Sony's PlayStation leads the market for home game consoles, with Microsoft snapping at its heels.

While prototypes of the next-generation PlayStation3 were on display in glass cases, video game fans were unable to test the new product as it is still being developed.

Instead they had to settle for images from PlayStation3 games shown on a big screen at the show, which opens to the public on Saturday.

Visitors can however see Microsoft's new Xbox 360 in action for the first time, three months before it hits the shelves in North America on November 22, in Europe on December 2 and in Japan on December 10.

Neither the PlayStation3 nor the Revolution is expected to go on sale until next year, giving Microsoft the head-start that it failed to achieve with its first Xbox, which came out in 2001 a whole year after the PlayStation2.

"It's an exciting time for Microsoft here in Japan," said Robert Bach, who heads the Xbox division.

The new Xbox "is the first next-generation console and the most powerful in terms of graphics," he said.

Partly because it was late to the game, and partly because it never mustered enough games titles, the Xbox division has lost Microsoft more than one billion dollars a year since 2001.

But this time round, the software titan has partnered up with all the industry's leading games developers -- including Electronic Arts, Activision and Ubisoft -- and plans to develop games specifically for Japan.

"Japanese software will be developed. It will be a breakthrough in Japan," said Bach.

But Sony is confident that the PlayStation3 will be a hit.

The PS3 will be equipped with the world's most advanced Cell processor, which is 35 times as powerful as the PlayStation2.

With some 13,000 games and 191 million sold in 120 countries since its launch in 1994, the PlayStation is for now the most popular game console among video game players.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050916/tc_afp/afpentertainmentjapan;_ylt=AjY1Z6cDr55aapATxGyPqSojtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl