Wii

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 4 Comments

The gaming community has been filled with buzz at the possibility of a hard drive over the past few months. Wii owners are beginning to grow tired of clearing out their virtual fridge and have been begging for a storage solution. The lack of a hard drive has definitely caused a huge amount of problems. Here are our top 5 complaints that the lack of a Wii hard drive has created.

5) Nintendo is losing money

At the end of the day, the addition of a Wii hard drive would help Nintendo rake in more money. Numerous Nintendo representatives – including Satoru Iwata himself – have noted that the current storage solution affects an isolated number of Wii owners. Regardless of the validity of this belief, all types of Wii owners will catch up with the hard drive issue in due time (yes Nintendo, casual gamers included!) If Nintendo continues to develop channels for the Wii, and as long as Virtual Console/WiiWare titles are released, there is a lingering guarantee that people will download them. Unfortunately for Nintendo, there is a common consensus amongst the gaming community that once casual gamers reach their storage limit, they will become confused/frustrated with having to remove content from the Wii menu. In the end, the Wii would lose some of its accessibility, which is something Nintendo has wanted to avoid on the Wii front at all costs.

4) Lack of real downloadable content

While it’s great to be able to receive new levels in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and being able to participate in Mario Kart Wii tournaments, we can’t help but wish that these gifts can be revisited. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, levels are recycled each day. This means that you may encounter a fan-made creation you absolutely love, only to see it disappear forever in a twenty-four hour period. The situation is similar with Mario Kart. New tournaments will be available every few weeks, but once the deadline passes, forget about being able to replay them. Basically, we want content which can be kept and revisited at a future date. Having to part with unique content is very unfortunate and is something we know can be addressed in future titles with a hard drive solution.

3) Companies aren’t supporting downloadable content

Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up in the morning, power up your Wii, and know that some original content is available for the game you’re playing? For most, the answer would be yes. Sadly, however, very few companies are supporting downloadable content. Up to this point, only Nintendo has been a true supporter of add-on functionality. However, it’s tough to put the blame on companies for the lack of support because there is no acceptable area to store original content. Fortunately, Vicarious Visions has announced downloadable content for Guitar Hero: World Tour; although, this announcement does bring up the question as to where the new content will be stored – We’re praying that this is a sign of a hard drive announcement in the future.

2) Deleting channels

From the moment the Wii released, Nintendo has provided its fans an opportunity to download five unique channels. Nintendo generally promotes them when they first become available, encouraging players to download them for free. However, these channels come at a virtual price. The Internet channel alone requires 270 blocks of your Wii flash memory. Granted you have downloaded all of the channels and purchased a few WiiWare or Virtual Console titles, you will be forced to delete some channels to conserve space. This means that channels which are actually worthwhile to keep such as the Nintendo Channel, Internet Channel, Mario Kart Wii Channel, and Wii Fit channel, may end up being deleted.

1) Having to deal with re-downloading/transferring games

The classic mantra from Nintendo regarding concerns about a storage solution has been blunt. As has been said countless times, users can simply transfer content to their SD card or re-download content from the Wii Shop Channel. Sadly, Nintendo has yet to recognize the huge amount of frustration both of these methods cause. Copying data to a SD card is an extremely aggravating process. A file which consists of 250 blocks takes more than a few minutes to transfer. Moreover, some save files (such as the Super Smash Bros. Brawl data) cannot be copied. Obviously, this is a serious problem which needs to be addressed, particularly when you consider that re-downloading games isn’t any more convenient than transferring data to a SD card.

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

“It’s quite hard to compare difficulty levels between Wii and Xbox 360. The gameplay is quite different as a result of the different strengths and control systems of the consoles, but we’ve tried to keep the experience consistent. If it gets too hot you can always use the chapter select menu to move on!” – Atari producer Max Loppin

Overall, it looks like the experience on Wii will be very similar to what you’ll get on the Xbox 360 and PS3. This is probably one of the first titles that for Wii that isn’t being shafted to the other versions of the same game.

Source

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

1 (1) – Super Mario Bros. 3
2 (2) – Super Mario Bros.
3 (3) – Super Mario World
4 (4) – Punch-Out!!
5 (7) – The Legend of Zelda
6 (6) – Super Mario Bros. 2
7 (8) – Mario Kart 64
8 (10) – Super Mario 64
9 (9) – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
10 (5) – Double Dragon
11 (11) – Donkey Kong Country
12 (12) – Pac-Man
13 (13) – Donkey Kong
14 (14) – Paper Mario
15 (16) – The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
16 (17) – Star Fox 64
17 (N) – Metal Slug
18 (18) – Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
19 (19) – Kirby’s Adventure
20 (15) – River City Ransom

1 (5) – Dr. Mario Online Rx
2 (1) – Defend your Castle
3 (2) – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
4 (4) – TV Show King
5 (3) – LostWinds
6 (N) – Family Table Tennis
7 (6) – Pop
8 (7) – V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack
9 (8) – Star Soldier R
10 (9) – Critter Round-Up

– Numbers in parenthesis indicate slot in previous week

– N stands for new title

Toki Tori and Protothea debuted at 11th and 12th respectively, but I assume that is because the two titles launched only two days ago.

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

7/24?Kung Fu Panda
7/24?Wario Land Shake
7/31?Fatal Frame 4
8??Sugoroku Chronicles
9/4?Rainbow Pop
10/23?Tenchu4
11/27?Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekidou. (The Turmoil Of Suzumiya Haruhi)
11/27?Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekidou Deluxe Pack
2008? Blob: Colorful Hopes
2008?Rune Factory Frontier
No release date?DISASTER DAY OF CRISIS

Source

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

– Every aspect is considerably improved compared to the DS games.
– The main character, a young man named Laguna, wanders throught he savage lands in search of a disappeared young girl.
– The game takes place on the island of Tranrupia, an uncivilized land which Laguna is challenged to pioneer and cultivate
– In addition, a gigantic floating island resembling a whale mysteriously emerged from the sky.
– As the land is further pioneered, a village starts to develop around the farms, and shops start to appear
– The game is set for a 2008 release.

Source

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

The public reaction to Spyborgs this morning was anything but enthusiastic. For the most part, big and epic games were expected from Capcom, but it seemed as though Capcom had not delivered. However, Christian Svensson has responded to the general reception with some promising news.

“Dark Void and Spyborgs are the two biggest titles our office is working on. To say that either of them isn’t an incredibly high priority for the company, with major resources against them would be a pretty big misunderstanding of the reality. The team working on Spyborgs is an all-star team of some of the best character action game developers in the world, backed by us. Have faith. This is a game that is incredibly thoughtful in its design, incredibly varied in its mechanics and will be incredibly fun to play (both alone or with a buddy/son or daugther/father or mother) when its done. The initial reaction here (Capcom boards) I swear is the EXACT reaction so many of you posters had when we first revealed Zach & Wiki. Somehow, Z&W is now a posterchild title for the Wii in your eyes. Mark my words… you will feel exactly the same way about the level of quality in Spyborgs when it is done. …Again, this is a big, epic game. A far cry from typical Wii shovelware. You’ve heard my rants on that before… I won’t go through it again.

The irony is, we met High Impact (and by extension their subsidiary Bionic Games) at a mutual license pitch that neither we nor they were really interested in. As we met them though, I learned a bit more about who they were, what they’d done and we went back to their office to chat more about “other things”. Once there, as we talked about other business opportunities, on the walls of their conference room was some early concept work for what was to become Spyborgs. While they weren’t really pitching it, I asked what it was.

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Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 1 Comment

“We’d love to do another Toki Tori version. Once with new weapons items, level creation, sharing you name it. We got tons of ideas on the shelves here, but it all comes down to the sales. If the title sells well, I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of our little yellow feathered chick.” – Martijn Reuvers, Two Tribes’ managing director

Toki Tori is one of the best games available on WiiWare right now. New content/features would be great for a new title.

Source

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

This is one of the more recent videos that has gone live on the Nintendo Channel. For those of you who don’t have access to it can view the movie here.

Posted on 16 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

“Per the Terms and Conditions of the Nintendo Loyalty Program, some users? Stars will begin expiring at the end of June. Stars that have been in your account for 24 months will expire at the end of the 24th month. Starting 1 June, you can log in to your Club Nintendo account to see if you have any Stars that are about to expire. If you spend your Stars in June, the ones about to expire will be the first used for purchasing items. Learn more about the expiration at our Terms and Conditions page.” – Nintendo email

This applies to the European program of course, but it’s still disappointing news. I know a lot of people have accumulated thousands of stars, but have been unable to purchase Wii points due to a lack of stock.