"In a recent interview, Nintendo of Europe’s Senior Director of Marketing Jim Merrick divulged various details concerning the Revolution’s controller, game interaction, and the winner of the next-gen cycle, among other topics.

Foremost, Merrick attacked the question of controlling older games. Apparently Nintendo is “producing a classic-style expansion controller, based on traditional designs like the GameCube controller. It’s like a shell with a hole in the top into which you slot the freehand-style controller, and then you can play third-party ported games, and retro Nintendo games you’ve downloaded.”

Next came the question of how the controller would feel during actual play. “It’s designed to make you feel like moving around is easy and natural. For years we’ve been moving backwards and forwards with our thumbs, but now all that’s going to change.” Merric said, “it’s as natural as putting our hand out of the car window when you’re a kid and moving it through the air like a plane. Well, now you might have a flying game where instead of using your thumbs, you’re actually tilting the controller to fly the plane.”

Concerning the controller’s development duration, Merrick stated that “it’s a difficult thing to pin down... [but he] really started seeing references maybe a year ago.” As for whether or not the current model is finished product or not, the Merrick asserted that “it’s nearly finished,” and that they’ve “got time to make a few refinements, but fundamentally it’s complete.”" [more]