Devs seen Rev controller - Reg

The secrecy-shrouded controller for the Nintendo Revolution console has been seen by a number of developers already, according to comments made byNintendo of America VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime.

Speaking with US magazine EGM, the bombastic Fils-Aime revealed a little additional information about the console and its much talked about joypad - including the fact that just because "you and your fans haven't seen the controller doesn't mean that no one else has."

"The thing that I always find surprising, and certainly in the last year I've had wonderful opportunities to spend quality time with a number of our key third-party publishers, is when you sit down and share the innovation with them, just how excited they get," he said.

"I saw it firsthand with DS, we're seeing it now with Revolution," he continued.

Regarding the controller itself, Fils-Aime expanded on some of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's hints about the design from his E3 presentation. "If you just think about it, we're going to have the ability through wireless internet to download all your great games from NES, SNES, N64," he said.

"Think about it - each of those controllers are different. How are you gonna play? That captured some of the imagination of what our controller needs to be able to do, and certainly as you get into the meat of that type of innovation with the developers, their eyes truly light up because they start to imagine what's possible with that kind of configuration, which is vastly different than a sheer horsepower kind of game."

Speaking more generally about the Revolution console, Fils-Aime also confirmed widespread speculation that the console will be launched at a significantly lower price point than its next-generation competitors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"We have to assume that from a pricing standpoint, we will be substantially lower than the competition," he said, going on to say that this would be because the Revolution won't have "all of that added fluff that a gamer, frankly, doesn't [want] - it's not core to gaming."

Many commentators expect Nintendo to announce further details of the Revolution this August, a month when the company has traditionally made at least one major announcement over the last few years.