Revolution to get wireless LAN capability

Since Nintendo announced that their next-gen console will be called ‘Revolution’, gamers have speculated as to what it will contain that will allow it to live-up to its moniker. Well, with little under 7 weeks to E3, Nintendo have finally started to spill some beans, and it is probably the least unexpected announcement – that the Revolution will have wireless LAN capability. Also mentioned was the intention for Nintendo to get serious about online gaming – something they have steered well-away from this gen, claiming that they would enter the online market when they felt a reasonable profit could be made from it.

Of the LAN stuff, Iwata-san said, “The next-generation console will follow along the same line as the DS [for wireless LAN]. The ideal is for users to be able to connect to the Internet without having to think about it.” Hmm, some kind of neural-link thing going on there, then?

Much of the speculation regarding Revolution has tended to centre on the design and features of the controllers (well, it has on the forums I frequent, anyway), and this was also touched-on. Comparing to the current status-quo, Iwata-san claimed that current controllers “may satisfy the hardcore gamers, but they’ve become too difficult for more casual gamers.”

“For the next-generation console, we plan to introduce a friendly user interface so that, for example, a mother who’s watching her child playing a game might say, ‘Oh, I’d like to try that too,'” he said.

“However, user interfaces are devices that can easily be imitated by other companies, so I can’t reveal any details right now.”

Also tucked away in the Nikkei Business interview was the fact that the Revolution will share the GameCube’s software libraries and API’s in a bid to keep development costs down.

With full details of everything about the Revolution to be announced at E3 (and indeed the PS3 and Xbox-whatever), keep glued to Pro-G for news as it happens.