Revolution Interface

[Teuthida]

First off, let me apologize, I don't have solid proof as that would be impossible, but you do have my word. My cousin (first cousin, my mother's sister's son) works as a software engineer at an independant developer (I can't say the name of the developer for obvious reasons). And I grew up looking up to this guy, I trust him very much, and I know this is real because he says it is, he took the picture himself with his cameraphone (one of several pictures in fact, but only one came out worth looking at, the rest the TV flickered too much).

Anyway, this developer recieved a Revolution alpha kit a few weeks ago. My cousin couldn't say what was in it (in terms of specs), but he did give a good description of how the main interface works. First, here it is:

Huge pic here: http://gonintendo.com/wp-content/photos/revophoto.jpg

Here's the various features he mentioned. He, and I for that matter, hopes that none of these were the "revolutionary" aspects, but they are cool to know, and I like this a lot better than XB360's "Blades".

* The overall style is inspired by the DS OS. This is probably not final, as the options down bottom are displayed in text rather than icons, and "Calendar" was spelled wrong.
* The color theme is customizable, like on the DS. The top bar, the cross and selection hairs, the controller signal block, and the glow around the bottom text all follow a specific color scheme (default is blue). Apparently, other items in the interface have yet to include programmable colors. He said that the main menu will follow whatever you set it to, but everywhere else will remain blue.
* The controller signal box sounds interesting. Each number will highlight green, yellow, or red depending on the signal strength of the controller. Green is normal, yellow is too far away (my cousin saw a noticable lag in response time at a "yellow" distance), and red is out of range. Gray is used for when no controllers are activated for that slot.
* Further, when the signal box is selected, it enlargens into a calibration mode. Any activated controller turns into a 3d boxed numeral (grayed-out icons stay flat), and the number will move around in the direction as the controller. This allows you to calibrate each controller to remove discrepencies between where and how the controller is positioned and where and how the system thinks the controller is positioned.
* Finally, though the front screen looks bland, when you select an option (like Wifi or Settings), all the items "fall off" the grid, which also breaks apart, and pieces go flying around and spinning in all 3 directions for a second or two until they reconfigure into whatever menu the option took you to. That sounds pretty damn cool looking if you ask me. It does the same when backing up, except much faster. It's a shame he couldn't get a video of this.

Well, whaddaya know! This may not be final but at least we got something real to work with! I'm getting more and more excited for Revolution every day! And I'm pretty happy that I get to bring you guys this stuff, I'm just afraid that some people won't believe me.

I know you're just saying, but this guy has never steered me wrong. A few years ago, he told me a thing or two about the Gamecube (like how it had no controller expansion ports) before they became public. Like I said, he's not just any cousin, I grew up around him, he was more like a big brother rather than a cousin. And really now, I hate all these "developer" blogs. They're a bunch of complete bull****. Why would I want to join them?

Hmm... I never thought about asking for a pic of the controller, as we've all seen it. I'll ask him, though, the next time I'm talking to him, which won't be until the weekend. Throughout the week, he lives at a place without the internet, and internet access is really restricted at his office. On the weekends, he's usually at his girlfriend's place so that's when I'll talk to him. But, it'll be another week at least before I can get you pictures, and that's assuming he'll be able to have a go with the kit again and take a picture. It was three weeks after I first asked him for some shots of the kit in action before he was able to get one.

EDIT: Yeah, I thought the bars were a little funky, too, but I took my TV on a random channel and took some shots with my cameraphone, trying my best to get the same angle that he got, and the bars came out exactly the same. I guess it has something to do with the shutterspeed on the camera. Oh, and I don't have any more pictures, that's all he was able to send.




I'll let ya know, but it'll be tricky. The reason why it took so long, and why I can't say who he works for, is that he'll probably end up fired if caught. And I certainly don't want to be responsible for that.

EDIT: He didn't mention much else besides what I said. He did give a little description of "Memory Management" though that I forgot to mention. Basically, it shows the filesystems for the onboard memory, the SD slots, and both GCN memory card slots.





Holy crap, you guys are really making me go out of my way. I just called my cousin (I live on campus, and long distance is expensive), and he said he'll see into getting a better picture, with a digital camera or something. I'll have to let you know on this sometime tomorrow after he gets out of work and calls me.

Got from IGN boards who got from the Revolution Report boards.

First the console...then the controller...now everyone gets all excited about the menu...kinda sad.