Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The real revolution opening screen

Or so the writer says.


First here is what Zeromaru wrote;
"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 independent 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 received 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


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."
Me, I like it. I think that the DS has attracted a certain audience and it would seem sensible to make that audience feel at home with the revolution. in the top corner there is "Rev alpha", and I think that Rev would be quite a good name for the console even if the RS (revolution system does sound better). Of course if this is what it is claiming to be, I am sure it will improve in looks before the revolution comes out. I am going to go out on a limb and although it has some faults I think this may have come off a Rev dev kit and this will be similar to what we will eventually see
Gexs Revolutionaryness: 9.5/10

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