With the launch of the Xbox 360 last fall and the promise that the PlayStation 3 will launch in the summer, Nintendo’s revolution hasn’t gotten much attention in the press. Perhaps it’s because its predecessor, the GameCube, hasn’t enjoyed the popularity of Sony and Microsoft consoles in recent years. Even so, Revolution will be released sometime in 2006, and Nintendo promises that it will change the way we play games forever.

So what’s so different about Revolution? According to a 2005 interview with Nintendo spokespeople by IGN.com, Nintendo Revolution will not fit the “more powerful, better” mentality of recent gaming systems. Instead, Nintendo will focus its efforts on developing a “small, quiet, affordable console” that will change the way games are played. How affordable? Nintendo is looking to sell the Revolution for less than $200.

Some of the features promised in Nintendo’s new system will be a sleek new design, 512MB of flash memory, and a state-of-the-art wireless controller (which looks a lot like a TV remote and operates with one hand). Revolution users will also be able to play games online over Wi-Fi and watch DVDs (although you must purchase an additional accessory to turn your Revolution into a DVD player).

As for the games, Nintendo promises that the Revolution will be backwards compatible with the GameCube, allowing you to play all NGC titles. New titles for Revolution are also in the works, as well as remakes of old Nintendo favorites, including Animal Crossing, Super Smash Brothers, and Metroid Prime 3 (although these have not been confirmed). Perhaps the most exciting element for old-school gamers is that Nintendo promises users the ability to download and play many games from Nintendo’s twenty-year history (theoretically all NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 titles).

While we’re not exactly sure how Revolution will change the way we view the game, one thing is for sure. If anyone can deliver, it’s Nintendo.