Looks like Takahasi, creator of Katamari, isn’t fond of the Nintendo Revolution. That’s cool, but I think he’s cheesed at it for the wrong reasons:

“I’m not really interested in it. I don’t think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.’ He continued: ‘I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they’re putting such emphasis on the controller; ‘Woah, this controller lets you do this!’ and I’m thinking - are you messing with us?’”

Excuse me? The controller shouldn’t have that much influence on the enjoyment of games? The controller is the only interface you have to the game system, if it sucks, so does your game system. Controller design is just as important to a console’s design as the graphics hardware.

Remember the N64? The Atari Jaguar? I though both controller designs were terrible and both game systems tanked (though the N64 did have it’s following). I’m not all that crazy about the Game Cube’s and Xbox’s designs, either. Besides, it’s about time someone started actually innovating in the console area instead of cranking more money into fitting more graphics cores onto a board. Games need more than just graphics.

What also sticks in my crawl is that Takahasi is singling out the controller like it’s the only feature of the Revolution. He completely ignored the online game store coming down the pike which will allow the owners to purchase and play games for every nintendo console up to the N64, the ability to use SD cards as memory cards, yes, the new controller, how the DS will act as a wireless controller for some games (much like the gameboys do now) and a host of other things.

All-in-all, I found his comments very myopic and just not very well thought-out for someone of Takahashi’s mental caliber.