Wii stuff

[Yegolev]

I almost titled this post "The Wii Hole", but that's just stupid.

High-Voltage is now a Wii developer.  They are one of those small, profitable game companies you never hear about.  They made that last Leisure Suit Larry game.
http://gamasutra.com/features/20060616/vanzelfden_01.shtml

“I had this sitting out on my table.  And our receptionist came in, and she was dropping off my mail, and just immediately ran right over to it, and was ‘what’s this?’ and picked it up and ‘oh, this is neat!’”

Nintendo is going to win.  No one can resist a controller that is shaped like a wang.

The people at Cubed³ seem to think it is a big deal that Metal Slug Anthology and two Mercury games are going to be Wii games and should arrive before the end of 2006.  There isn't any mention of this at Ignition Entertainment's web site, so C³ might be lying bastards or simply rumormongering.

[dusematic]

I for one, appreciate a wii bit of humor now and then.

[Yegolev]

That's great, because if I bring anything to this site, it's vague and pointless Wii information.

[HaemishM]

No information about the Wii is pointless. I welcome our new motion-sensing console overlords.

[Yegolev]

I wholeheartedly agree with Haem, however I am never sure if my unchecked Nintendo bias is overinflating the significance of things in my mind.

Plus there is relatively little new information out there.  Right now I am just finding stuff like "the Wii may be more powerful than we thought" due to the advanced 1T-SDRAM, and spectral launch titles (example, Metal Slug).

Mark these words, true believers: the Wii is going to have a significant impact on the future of gaming.  Maybe I should collect what I can remember as a summary here.

1: Enough has been said about the Wiimote.  It is the most revolutionary item on the list.  Likewise for the nunchaku.  I do wonder if anyone in the UK will raise a fuss about it.
2: The VC could go either way, but best-case it will be a good place for indy developers to create games for something other than mobile phones... and Live Arcade.
3: More advanced interaction between the DS and Wii will become important to those of us who don't mind buying all those Nintendo gadgets to enhance our play experience.  If you already have a DS, the Wii is even more tempting now.
4: Traditional controller will allow devs and gamers to ease into the console.
5: The "gun" attachment for the Wiimote will tempt the Halo types.  I'll be waiting for Resident Wiivil, myself.
6: VC games should all be under $10.
7: The Wii is going to be less than $250.  I can't remember if a lower bar has been set; I'll get one no matter the price as it stands.
8: Theoretically speaking, the Wii will have the best launch lineup ever in the history of console launches.
9: Twilight Princess.  Giggity giggity.

[dusematic]

I agree.  As of now, I'm quite possibly in the running for one of the most raging Nintendo fanboys.  I literally seethe with excitement for their hardware and software.  It's as if, after the SNES, I went into stasis, and now, mysteriously awoken, I've reconnected with my inner child.

[HaemishM]

Mark these words, true believers: the Wii is going to have a significant impact on the future of gaming. 

It will either be the greatest thing to happen to gaming since a mouse and keyboard and the Internet, or it will be the Virtual Boy 2 with arm aches instead of blurred vision and headaches.

[Yegolev]

In the interest of spreading rumors, here is the Cubed³ article reporting on the 1T-SRAM:
http://www.cubed3.com/news/5392

They also report that gamefront.de reports that Game Informer reports that System Shock 3 is in development, although no system is mentioned.  I refuse to believe this, for the sake of my sanity.  Also, it is supposedly being developed by EA.  No idea how this weaseled its way into a Wii-related article.

In the same article they say that someone saw a Jurassic Park logo in a sooper sekrit area of the E3 Nintendo citadel and suggest that this means you can download movies to your Wii.  More likely it means that there will be a shitty dinosaur game for the Wii, since I don't know anyone that would pay to see Jurassic Park.

They further spread such lies as details from an Ubisoft release list sent to American retailers: Blazing Angels (WWII flight sim), Prince of Persia and FarCry are supposedly Wii titles slated for launch or shortly afterward.

C³ assists EGM with their rumormongering by saying that many PS3 devs are jumping ship to the Wii, and that there is going to be a Star Wars game for the Wii where you... well, who the fuck would suggest that there won't be some sort of lightsaber-waving game for the Wii?  Seriously, the box could contain literal feces and it will sell ten million copies.

There is an interview on thewiire.com with Nippon Ichi Marketing Coordinator Jack Niida that is mostly useless, aside from perhaps this point:

The Wiire: You traditionally publish niche titles for consoles, but with all three hardware manufactures suggesting that you will be able to download games on their online services, do you think Nippon Ichi will look into providing downloadable games for these systems?

Niida: This is perhaps one of the most exciting marketing strategies for small companies like us. We will definitely be exploring this option with enthusiasm. Please look forward to what we will have to offer in the near future. I promise we will not disappoint you.

Considering how small NIS is and the fact that they don't have any DS games, this could very well be total bullshit.  Their current title is for PS2 and the next will be either PS2 or PS3.

There is also the Corporate Management Policy Breifing, probably dating June 6, on the Nintendo web site in which Satoru Iwata says they really need to set a price and launch date in or before September.  I heard that the holdup on pricing and timing is due to the IR bar not being finished.

The briefing indicates that the Wii development kit should run about 200k yen, and software costs "will be at the same level of GameCube."  I will spare you the quote, but Iwata-san indicates Nintendo is spending more money on "R&D" in order to make sure that there is no drop-off in the supply of software for the Wii, in contrast to the Gamecube.

Later in the briefing, Miyamoto sticks a small knife between Squeenix's ribs with this:

I am a very cost-conscious person, as you know by now. I have never spent money for non-prospective activities such as for building a movie studio.

Take that!

[HaemishM]

In the interest of spreading rumors, here is the Cubed³ article reporting on the 1T-SRAM:
http://www.cubed3.com/news/5392

Not Rumors

[dusematic]

I'm glad we're all in accord here.  What's an IR bar?

[Trippy]

I'm glad we're all in accord here.  What's an IR bar?

It's the bar you place above or below your TV to detect where the Wii Remote is pointing at. The Wii Remote is not like a light gun (which uses a mirror/light detection system to capture the light being reflected off the TV screen) so it needs some other method for detecting where it thinks you are pointing at on the TV screen.

[Strazos]

So will it be a problem if I am playing from a position below my TV?

[Trippy]

So will it be a problem if I am playing from a position below my TV?

Probably not if you calibrate it properly.

[schild]

I feel sorry for folks with front projection, that could be a problem.

[Yoru]

I feel sorry for folks with front projection, that could be a problem.

Or those fancy 1" thick wallmount TVs, if the IR attachment is more than just a stick-on thing.

If it's just a set of 3 IR lamps though, it could be pretty thin and be affixed with double-sided tape. Plus a wire to connect it to the Wii base station, unless they want to make it battery-operated, which would be a little silly.

[schild]

I expect a big honking mess all around.

[LadyGuardian]

Or those fancy 1" thick wallmount TVs, if the IR attachment is more than just a stick-on thing.

If it's just a set of 3 IR lamps though, it could be pretty thin and be affixed with double-sided tape. Plus a wire to connect it to the Wii base station, unless they want to make it battery-operated, which would be a little silly.

If the final version is what they had at E3 then it doesn't look too bad.

[schild]

God that's ghetto. This shit is ok when it's hidden in arcades, but for a home system?

Feh.

[dusematic]

The only thing ghetto about it is going to be the wire hanging off and down to a power cord.  Damn that's gonna be gross.  The bar alone is straight.

[schild]

Of course it's the wire. I already have enough wires behind and under my tv. I don't need one draped around the frame of the goddamn thing. I know I'm picking nits here, but just to make it clear, if ANY company wanted me to add dangly bits I'd get pissed. GREAT, WIRELESS CONTROLLER, WE'VE REPLACED THAT WIRE WITH ANOTHER ONE.

Feh.

[Merusk]

So how's the PS3 going to do it?  I'd assume the same exact way, with an IR bar and a cord.

[Trippy]

So how's the PS3 going to do it?  I'd assume the same exact way, with an IR bar and a cord.

You can't "point" the PS3 controller at the TV and have it detect where it's pointing AFAIK. I.e. there's no IR emitter on it, it only detects it's own relative movement (tipping, turning, etc.).

[schild]

Which means that the show miyamoto put on with tennis was just a show. I'm fairly sure the Wii controller doesn't shoot infrared off in every direction and through your hand.

[Trippy]

Which means that the show miyamoto put on with tennis was just a show. I'm fairly sure the Wii controller doesn't shoot infrared off in every direction and through your hand.

That's the motion sensing in action. THE WII REMOTE IS ALL POWERFUL! Accept that and your life will be much better.

[Yoru]

Which means that the show miyamoto put on with tennis was just a show. I'm fairly sure the Wii controller doesn't shoot infrared off in every direction and through your hand.

It's probably an IR lamp, not a laser. If they stick a little IR lamp on the front of the Wiimote, then you'll get at least 180 degrees of IR rays flying off the thing.

IR also bounces pretty well; this is why you can point your remote control at the wall and it still works if the angles are all correct.

[Hanzii]

Nintendo games leaves me cold and the Wii won't be cheap enough to buy on impulse (just in case).
We'll see how it goes...

[Morfiend]

Nintendo games leaves me cold and the Wii won't be cheap enough to buy on impulse (just in case).
We'll see how it goes...

You have no choice. THE HYPE OVERLORDS COMMAND YOU! BUY, BUY NOW FLESHLING!

[Sky]

If you people are so concerned about wires showing, there are ways to hide them, eh?

[dusematic]

Fleshling.  Heh.

[Hanzii]

Add to that, that Nintendo hates me.
Whenever they want me to review the DS (both times) they send me the console and a Mario game - the only Mario game I'm remotely interested in playing is Mario Karts and the send me Super Mario 64 and now New Super Mario Bros.
I've completed exactly one game on my DS: Advance Wars DS.

[Yegolev]

Without looking it up, here's how the IR bar works: it projects a "web" of IR beams in front of itself.  It doesn't do anything other than that, so it should have somewhat flexible placement options.  The Wiimote uses the data from its internal gyros/accelerometers and IR web data to figure out where it is and what it is pointing at.  Based on that, the cord for the IR bar should be just for power, not data transmission.  This would also mean that the black spot on the tip of the Wiimote is actually an IR receiver instead of a transmitter, as I had previously thought.  Until Anand Lal Shimpi gets around to disassembling one, I'll treat this as rumor.

The PS3 controller only has gyros/accelerometers to detect tilt or acceleration, as far as I can tell.

[Yegolev]

An old review of the three tech demos Nintendo used to show off the Wiimote is here at Nsider.  It doesn't mention the IR bar, but it gives a bit of information on using the Wiimote.  I expect this sort of thing to be one of the mainstays in Nintendo's casual-game lineup.

[Yegolev]

Ass-smoke or sly marketing from Reggie?  Trickling through the layers of news sites (in this case, thewiire.com -> Game Informer) comes this bit from a Game Informer interview:

If you've gotten to a particular part in a game, we could push content out to you, so you get to battle a new boss. Maybe you get a new artifact; maybe you get a new weapon...that's just one example,

On microtransactions:

If our licensee partners want to go in that direction, it's certainly possible in our system.

He also instigates a rumor that SD cards won't be the only supported storage medium on the Wii by saying:

It will be one of the memory mediums, and it's the only one that we've announced.

I'd like to think one of the supported storage media will be GC memory cards.  Also, the small flap on the front of the Wii is where your SD card will go.

[Yoru]

Ass-smoke or sly marketing from Reggie?  Trickling through the layers of news sites (in this case, thewiire.com -> Game Informer) comes this bit from a Game Informer interview:

If you've gotten to a particular part in a game, we could push content out to you, so you get to battle a new boss. Maybe you get a new artifact; maybe you get a new weapon...that's just one example,

That makes me a little more leery of the Wii; sounds like it might 'phone home' with your progress, with N disguising this as a value-add by saying they're using it to stream new content to you.

Why phone home? Valuable marketing and usability data - play session length, progress speed, etc.

[Yegolev]

I am assuming data-collection is an inevitability, but I don't really have a problem with Nintendo getting the data.  I have not formed an opinion on the almost-certain advertising.  Hopefully it won't be obtrusive, more like the Nintendo email newsletter than unskippable commercials.