More on the Revolution

Nintendo announced a while back that the Revolution would be backwards-compatible, and at this year's E3 it dropped the bomb about just how backwards-compatible it is: the system will be capable of playing games from every Nintendo system released to date, including the NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube.

The Revolution's online aspect plays into this as gamers will be able to download Nintendo classics released over the past twenty years and save them to either the system's built-in flash storage or to an SD card, which the Revolution will use for saving files. Third-party companies haven't announced their involvement with this plan, but it would be a shame not to see the likes of Capcom, Konami and others release their classics as well. Even still, the ability to play any Mario or Zelda console game ever released, in one place, sounds simply sublime.

Classic games will be downloaded via some sort of online service that Nintendo will set up for the system. It's unknown how this system will work, how much it'll cost to play the games or basically anything else for that matter, but Nintendo has always been kept a very, very user-friendly focus to all of its products so the Revolution's online aspect should be no different.

Getting the system online should be a snap as the Revolution will ship with built-in 802.11b and 802.11g WiFi support. Users with a wireless router should be able to hop online in a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds, if things play out as we expect them to.

The Revolution's other online aspects aren't known at this point, though it's quite obvious that online multiplayer gaming will finally be a reality on a Nintendo console. The thought of taking the likes of Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, F-Zero and other Nintendo classics online is sure to have Nintendo fans already salivating.