There have been plenty lining up to point fingers at Nintendo. Many non-believers are sharpening their logic throwing out arguments against the Revolution. Everything from lack of third party support to being just plain wierd have been sited as potential causes for the complete downfall of Nintendo’s home console legacy. Sure, there are many reason why Nintendo’s new console could fail, but there are just as many (and more intriguing) reasons why it could be a smashing success.
Hybrid Cars. It’s hard to turn on the television today without getting bombarded with advertising for hybrid cars. They’re everywhere, and it’s no 
wonder with the price of gasoline. It may not take ten gallons to power up a home console, but the extra pinch on the wallet is being seen in many marketplaces.
Can the average household income support an extra $1000 every five years for the next next-gen console? Even more importantly will they bother trying this coming generation? Nintendo doesn’t want to find out. They’ve stated that their intent is to make home consoles more affordable. With the price of gas rising everyday, being the most affordable console on the market could make a big difference.
Teens Losing Interest. A recent survey of teen’s shopping behavior reported that “75 percent of teens say their interest in video games is declining and 78 percent 
indicated they spent less time playing in 2005.” While this could be a result of an industry slump as it prepares for the next generation of consoles, it could also be signs of a bigger problem. People are getting tired of the same old thing.
Nintendo has always been on the fore-front of changes in video games. They continually push the bounds. With the Revolution, they are possibly pushing those bounds further than they ever had. A new innovative approach to video games could very well be the determining factor of this console’s success in the marketplace.
The PowerGlove. The most common argument against Nintedno’s success in the next gen has to be the PowerGlove. For many, Nintendo’s new controller is an eerie 
reminder of that peripheral from the past. While that reminder may haunt our thoughts, there are plenty of differences.
For starters, the PowerGlove didn’t fail due to poor third party support. It didn’t fail because consumers refused to adopt such an unusual control scheme. No, these were the results of the PowerGlove’s failure. It failed simply because it didn’t work. I can recall using the PowerGlove only once. I played Top Gun, and it was a frustrating experience. I couldn’t get the plane to fly straight, I couldn’t stop firing the machine guns, and worst of all, I would shoot off missiles at random. The PowerGlove simply did not work.
Simply put, if Nintendo’s new controller works and its fun, the Revolution is going to blow the competition out of the water.
Nintendo Gal
Why must I constantly remind people that the POWER GLOVE was NOT made by Nintendo???
Nicholas Roussos
I know it’s not made by Nintendo, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. It’s the argument everyone puts out there. I could have easily said the same thing with the Virtual Boy.
The Virtual Boy might have worked, but from what I understand it caused eye strain, so it didn’t work well. I used a Virtual Boy only once, and I can’t remember being able to tell what was going on. However, it was in a Blockbuster. My exposure to it was very limited.
Nintendo Gal
I could care less what worked and what didn’t since it’s in the past. I just want the facts straight that Nintendo didn’t create the power glove. 😛
Anonymous
the power glove was developed by mattel, move along now.
Sturek
I agree with Nicholas, the problem is not the power glove, or that it didn’t work. The problem is that everyone (read general gaming public) thinks the Rev is just a nicer looking power glove. I didn’t know the power glove, but so many people mentioned it during discussions about the Rev.
I am, to be honest, afraid that the Rev might not work as well as Ninny says….I have seen a lot of this motion tracking stuff and none of it does really work well….
But IGN and all the other sites/mags allowed to try those backstage demos said it works pretty good, so I am optimistic….
Sturek
oh and btw very nice article and I couldn’t agree more 😀
Rollin
“Simply put, if Nintendo’s new controller works and its fun, the Revolution is going to blow the competition out of the water.”
Blow outta the water is an overstatement. In my opinion, Revolution will climb at a steady pace to become a console brand again. If anything, it’ll be modestly ahead. I’m talking about the launch period of course. Still, PS3 and 360 will be really successful.
Anonymous
Personally, I don’t really see how any of those three things (hybrid cars, teen interest, or Power Glove) bodes well for Nintendo.
First off, hybrid cars are not all they’re cracked up to be. Sure, you might save money on gas… for a while. But from what I understand, the special battery that powers the electric engine has to be replaced every few years and is EXTREMELY expensive. As in, the thousands of dollars range. After a certain amount of costly battery replacements, the hybrid car stops paying for itself and actually costs MORE in the long run than you would have paid for a normal car and all those years of gas.
As for teen interest… well, it’s kind of a leap of logic to assume that they’re losing interest because they’re tired of the same old thing and that a vastly different controller is the answer. For that matter, maybe that means they will be drawn back to gaming by Microsoft and Sony’s HD/graphics hype. Anyway, videogames are a multi-billion dollar industry and it’s not really in danger of going under any time soon. It’s just a matter of which companies get how many billions of those dollars.
Also, it’s my understanding that Nintendo is trying to attract new gamers with the intuitive nature of the controller. This strategy may be great for attracting new players but it seems that it has now become Nintendo’s job to convince current gamers that the Revolution will not destroy the basics of gaming or make certain genres impossible, as they have been trying to reassure us with the controller shell add-on idea.
Also, I think that atrocities such as the Power Glove and the Virtual Boy are pretty much the last peripherals you would EVER want to bring up in defense in the daringly different Revolution controller. Instead of pointing at past flops and failures, why not look at different controllers that caught on (or at least worked well for the games they were designed for), such as DDR pads?
I want Nintendo to succeed as much as the next big Nintendo fan, and I have high hopes for the Revolution and its innovative controller. However, I just had to say that I really don’t think anything said here supports the case that Revolution will succeed (although I still think it’s entirely possible and probable that it will do well and become a “new standard” as Nintendo puts it).
Anonymous
Oh, and I forgot to mention that despite the GameCube costing drastically less than the PS2 and Xbox (and often including awesome games in the system bundles for free), Nintendo still came up short in this generation’s console race. Unfortunately, competitive pricing is not enough to win back the prodigal gamers. Obviously the price of gas was not enough to deter people from running out and buying buttloads of pricey PS2s and Xboxes.
Anonymous
Isnt it odd that everyone is bringing such a fuss over this controller without realizing something.
Nintendo gave us the 2 handed controller, they can take it away!
The Dpad was odd compared to the joystick, but personally I love it. I still use a Dpad in fighting games over an analog stick, no other device in the world can do the ‘hadoken’ as well as a Dpad.
The shell is for games that are released multiple systems, but the gamecube didnt rely on those either. The gamecube version of NFSU2 had worse graphics than the PS2 version, but the system is capable of looking better than.
EA Games doesnt support Nintendo, but Ubisoft does. Capcom doesnt support Nintendo, but Konami does. The creator of Metal Gear Solid shows HUGE support for them.
Notice Square-Enix is showing another FFVII for the PSP (oh god im sick of FFVII already >.<) wheras they are showing huge amounts of support for Nintendo. EA games I laugh at, although if Capcom doesnt support soon it will be sad to lose them for Nintendo products… Back to where I was going! Developers are mixed on this, but some of the greatest developers out there are showing support for this, they have all held it and seen it and used it, we havent. This is going to be as amazing as the touch screen; The DS HAS a touch screen, but you arent forced to use it 100 percent of the time. The Revo can move around, but you wont be using it like that ALL the time.
Rollin
Ppl sure have different opinions. 😀
clu
what’s with people writing their own articles as comments?
Rollin
They have to vent somehow.