Another round of Nintendo touch screen controller rumors !

***wraggster*** · March 20th, 2005, 23:45

Ready for a second round of rumors about how the controllers on Nintendo’s next-generation Revolution console are going to ditch the buttons and pads in favor of a configurable touch screen? Some speculation about all this was already going around back in December (and then there was that something or other in January about them coming with built-in gyroscopes), now a magazine called Game Informer is absolutely convinced that the Revolution will have a “touch screen as its controller” that has “no analog stick or shoulder buttons,” and that the “touch screen on the face of the controller is designed to be fully customizable.” Sound familiar? Whether they actually have some inside dirt or are just recycling December’s rumor isn’t totally clear, but it seems inconceivable that Nintendo would completely abandon actual physical controls (think of the hand strain!). Yeah, we get that the touch screen on the Nintendo DS (pictured at right) has its fans and that Nintendo is clearly enamored with the whole idea of touching, but even the DS has a d-pad and actual buttons. Note that while Game Informer says there isn’t an analog stick or shoulder buttons, they don’t mention whether there is a d-pad or not, so even if the controller for the Revolution does have some sort of touch screen, it still seems more plausible that they’re planning some sort of hybrid controller rather than something that is going to look like a Palm with a cable running out of it.

**Mental2k** · March 24th, 2005, 11:58

does this meant that they could just configure different areas of a flat panel touch screen to be different buttons, and one area to act like an analogue pad?then make the whole thing controller shaped, then this way you caould have any buttton layout you wanted, all you would have to do is to move the sensitive areas to a postition you liked? A controller that would then suit everyones needs. You could have different set ups for racing games and 2D beat em ups and so forth, and then just load them at request. It sounds good if you could do what I just said.

**ptr.exe** · March 24th, 2005, 18:00

Yeah, but touch screen doesnt feel as 'solid' as buttons and ninty have announced that Revolution will be backwards compatible (first Nintendo home console to do so) so it would be hard to have pressure sensitive L + R buttons on a touch screen.
I doubt this will be the main type of control but will be an optional controller that some games may use, even ninty arent stupid enough to force touching on people (that sounded strange...)

**Mental2k** · March 25th, 2005, 16:57

lol, ipod 3rd gen buttons are touch sensitive(not the same but the way apple have done it it feels touch sensitive) , it takes a little while to get used to but its rather neat.