Anyone who walked into a Human Computer Interaction lab between 1998 and 2002 would have been able to tell you that many people have been working on gyroscopic mice and direct screen pointing devices as replacements for conventional mice for a very long time.

What makes Nintendo unique is that they realized the potential for both of these devices, packaged them in such a way that they could work in both conventional games (Wiimote+nunchuck) as well as in new games (wiimote), and made these devices the standard input device on a major platform to force developers to use them.

Products like the eyetoy and other unconventional input devices could have been just as successful but developers will never take much advantage of them because the potential reward is so small ...

Is it just you. 

No i'd say it doesn't look better then the Wii.  Dreamcasts are a lot of fun though, worth getting if you can pick one up second hand, plenty of fun stuff, runs homebrewed games you can burn from the internet, has a web browser.  Heck they may still sell them through the Sega store.

Dreamcasts rock.

To lazy, but I will say the title is flame bait.

Ever hear of the Sega Activator? The U-Force? The Turbo Touch 360? Of course you've all heard of the power glove. These are all accesories from the 8-bit and 16-bit era that were supposed to offer a new and immersive experience. Problem was that they all barely worked.

If I designed the flying car by strapping a hang glider to my Cherokee, and I drove it off of a cliff, it may fly for 2 seconds before it exploded on the rocks below. If 10 years later somebody competent designed one, and IT WORKS, would any one claim "Sure this flying car revoloutinized travel, but they were just copying d21lewis. If he were alive today, he'd be so mad....".

Nintendo didn't invent the touch screen. Nintendo didn't invent motion control. Nintendo didn't invent rumble or the analog stick. What they did do was look at these pre-existing technologies and decide that the time is right for them to be used for video games- not as an accessory, but as the standard. They haven't been wrong yet.......*virtual boy* cough. cough. WHO SAID THAT!!

oH, GodZ! niNtendo am not innonaTivez! Tehy are d0omeD!

:P

Nintendo didn't invent the stylus either, but they sure innovated it. Alot of a products usefullness is how it is used.

Did anyone ever think that Nintendo invented things ? Because that's just plain wrong.  The NES was created using the tech that was cheapest to use at the time, and I think that the D-pad was used because it was cheaper than a full joystick - especially if they were to perform digital functions either way. The SNES used off the shelf parts as well, as did many Nintendo products (most recently - the DS which uses 2 ARM chips).

Regarding innovation - that's another story. Accelerometers have been around for a VERY long time, and people tried to implement them in gaming controllers more than once (MS  being one of the 1st to try), but Nintendo simply did it in a way that works pretty well, and pretty much forced devs to work with it - something never done before.

Nintendo is an innovator in implementation - they take existing techs and find how to best utilize them.

BTW, most of Nintendo's innovations have been in the control department, and have never used "new" techs - the D-pad, the analog stick, the shoulder buttons, the wii remote- all used commonly available components, but used them in ways that made them feel good.

The d-pad was developed for the game & watch, a portable that couldn't really have a full fledged joystick.

Also, the SNES had plenty of custom chips in it - infact it actually had more than the Genesis. NES had custom chips as well, like every nintendo console.

Lame...

looks like it was a Million dollar success =D