May 17^th, 2005 (9:51am) - USA Today has revealed the design of Nintendo’s next-generation home console, code-named "Revolution." Like previously reported, the console is no taller than three DVD cases stacked up on each other, and a just a bit longer than a DVD case. The Revolution can also be placed to stand vertically or horizontally, will features wireless controllers, be able to play games online from launch, will be backwards compatible with GameCube games, and is confirmed to feature DVD playback.

Unlike the GameCube, which had been a top loading game console, the Revolution will be a front-loading console that will play full-sized DVD, in addition to GameCube optical discs. The console has also been confirmed to feature DVD playback, so owners can use the console to watch movies just as they could with an Xbox 360 or PS3.

It is being reported that Nintendo’s online service for the GameCube will be very similar to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has stated that Nintendo would not charge players for taking their games online, but he did mention that third-parties may charge for downloadable content and MMORPG-like games.

One of the most intriguing pieces of new information is that Nintendo’s online service will offer gamers downloadable version of past and current Nintendo games, from the original Donkey Kong arcade game to Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube. At the current time Nintendo has not revealed if downloading these games is free.

Nintendo has stated that the Revolution will be three times as powerful as the GameCube. "It’s not all about having ’turbo power,’ " Nintendo’s Perrin Kaplan says. "It’s about what you do with it."

Analyst Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group says one of Revolution’s chief advantages is that designers will find it far easier to create games for Revolution than for competing systems. "They do not need to make major changes from the games they were designing," he says. "They have better performance without having to do a lot of extra work."

Says Kaplan: "We’ve built Revolution around the concept of ’all-access gaming,’ " a term Nintendo uses to mean the system is easily adapted to by both gamers and designers. "We’re about sticking to the soul of gaming."

We’ll have more on Nintendo’s next-gen platform, and hopefully images of its controllers from Nintendo’s E3 press conference.