I'll be the first to admit that I was worried about the Nintendo Revolution. The idea of making a system that "changed the way we played games" had me very worried. After all, if its really going to change the way we play, will third party developers be willing to adjust? Would EA really want to make a new Madden for the Revolution if gamers would have to go through leaps and bounds to do things that they would have been able to do easily by pushing a few buttons on a PS2 controller? Luckily there was one thing that President Iwata mentioned in his keynote presentation that put all my worries to rest. That one thing is backward compatibility.

Now you're probably thinking, "What?", but I assure you, this is what relieved me. If the Revolution is going to be able to play GameCube games, then its going to have to have a controller that accommodates it. And yeah, I'm sure that Nintendo could potentially make a crazy controller that is capable of use in GameCube games, but not as comfortably. If you don't quite get what I mean, I'd like to point out the Madcats's Retrocon controller for the PS2. Playing fighting games (especially Street Fighter III: Third Strike!) is ridiculously comfortable with this controller. But try using it on a FPS (I used XIII to test it), and soon your hand will feel cramped and overly uncomfortable. GameCube games on the Revolution would suffer the same fate if the new controller was that drastically different.

So, what of the rest of the keynote presentation? Nintendo seems to finally realize the need for online gaming. I'm a bit worried about it being Wi-Fi however, just because I know NOTHING about networking, and don't know how easily (or expensive) getting Wi-Fi into a household would be. I'm afraid that other gamers (especially primarily console gamers, like me) are going to be intimidated by this. Hopefully this is a fear of nothing.

Enough of fears, let's talk about something that isn't scaring me at all. The new Legend of Zelda is looking amazing. You've got to wonder, most Xbox fanboys talk about how their system has the potential to make the best graphics. So, without trying to make this a Console Wars discussion, why haven't they? If you asked me, I'd say the Xbox would be hard pressed to find a game that looked better then the Resident Evil remake of 2002, let alone this years way better looking Resident Evil 4. And now Zelda looks to have graphics of equal (but not as gory) brilliance, with the same gameplay that gave Ocarina of Time the first "10" rating in GameSpot history. As a Nintendo fanboy, I have no worries about the GameCube's end. Its going out with a bang.

The DS games on display looked very interesting. Putting Animal Crossing Online is a great idea, but as Greg admitted in On The Spot, I do worry about people online making the game a living hell for people just trying to have a good time. Nintendogs (wasn't that game's name changed to Puppy Times?) and Electroplankton both look crazy, unfortunately it was very hard to hear Bill Trinnen's voice while presenting (at least on the video, I'm sure he sounded just fine in real life).

So is Nintendo on the way out? Is it going the way of Sega? I hardly think so. NIntendo's still got a lot of muscle behind it, and its going to use every bit of it.