Hi Bag,

I was just wondering, with the advent of SDHC (or SD 2.0) do you think Nintendo will change the Wii card readers to read SDHC or do you think that we will be stuck with traditional SD cards with slower rates? I'm sure the rates are good enough for what it's doing but it would be nice if we could get N64 games loaded even faster.

Paul

No, the Wii will likely stick with the standard SD cards. All SD cards will be used for is data transfer from one place to another or archival data storage beyond the 512MB of internal memory the hardware comes with. What the console has will certainly be adequate. If Nintendo has anything else planned for the SD storage, whatever it is probably wouldn't require the higher speed cards. I see no real advantage to changing it at the last moment, and I'm sure Nintendo feels the same way about it.

Hi PGC. :-) In a past mailbag one of you guys came up with an idea for Waverace on Wii and I am sure you and many fans have ideas for plenty of franchises but I am afraid the Wii will not deliver. The franchises might not play like gamers feel it should. Sonic,Prince of Persia and other 3rd party franchises might not meet expectations on Wii and people might lain towards the PS3/360 game of the franchise. (I have not read the Wii preview of Sonic yet.) :-)

Also virtual console imagine the possibilities, but remember the possibilities of GBA connectivity football plays on your GBA? Sure we want the hits but will Nintendo just deliver games unwanted by gamers while we sit back and wait for Mario's Zelda's etc. Also lets say games are $5.00 (Virtual Console) why pay $5.00 for NES Zelda when you a money conscious gamer are saving up for Twilight Princess with your hard earned money? :-) I just hope Nintendo delivers with the Wii. Franchises,Virtual Console,and Online gaming. :-)

Sign,Brandy Chandler :-)

The prospect of solid third party games on Wii has been a topic of discussion ever since Nintendo unveiled the Wii controller at TGS late last year. Everyone feared that developers would just port down the 360 and PS3 games to the less powerful Nintendo system, give it a half-hearted control scheme and be done with it.

Judging by the first batch of third party Wii titles, that may already be turning out to not be the case. Ubisoft and EA, two of the biggest publishers out there, are not only supporting the system with launch titles, they have top development teams dedicated to developing Wii-specific versions of their top franchises. If consumers skip the Wii version of a particular title, it won't because publishers and developers gave less than their full effort in producing the best possible Wii game. It's very encouraging that publishers are throwing so much support behind a concept that is still unproven in the mainstream market, and even if the hardcore favor a PS3/360 version of a mulitplatform game, there will still be plenty of other people that will want to give the Wii version a look. The fact that it will probably be $10 less than the competition will help in that regard.

To think Nintendo will hold back the classic games that everyone wants is ridiculous. It's unknown exactly which games will be available on Virtual Console after the Wii launches later this year, but you can be assured that many of the games will be the popular ones. Game pricing is also still up in the air, but hopefully the amounts aren't outrageous. Making them too pricey would work against Nintendo for the reason you stated, but they don't want to give the games away, either. I think whatever Nintendo settles on will be at the higher end of everyone's acceptable price range, making it so getting a classic game here and there won't break the bank for those also saving up for full-price Wii games.

I see on the Nintendo Club page (club.nintendo.jp) that there's a Game & Watch Collection for the Nintendo DS.

So, any plans for a stateside release?

By the way, I have tons of points for the Nintendo Club but being an American I don't think I can cash them in (if it's possible, then I could use some help lol).

At the moment, there are no plans to bring the special Club Nintendo version of the Game and Watch Collection to America. I would hope that a full-scale release was in the cards, because the DS is obviously perfect for remaking/re-releasing the G&W library. The GBA has only seen one of the Game & Watch Gallery compilation releases, so it has been a while since the games have been available for people to go out and get.

I think the history of Club Nintendo will prevent that from happening, however. Usually, stuff that Club Nintendo members get in Japan stays exclusive to the points program. I can't think of anything that was in the Japanese in the Club program that has ever been made available to the public in Japan, let alone released to an English market. Still, I hope that the DS G&W Collection will show up here in one form or another eventually.

Two questions:

Do you think the price and current negative industry perceptions of the PS3 may dissuade once-Sony-loving developers to jump ship and produce their games for more consumer-friendly systems like Wii, XB360 and DS? I can't imagine Square Enix will want to release FFXIII for a system that 70% of their former consumer base could not reasonably afford. I've even heard rumors that SE may consider making Dragon Quest IX a Wii-exclusive if Dragon Quest Swords performs well.

Next question: Square announced earlier that FFV and FFVI will be ported to GBA a la FFIV, though we haven't heard anything about that for a while. However, anticipation for the DS remake of FFIII is reportedly very high in Japan, so this begs the question: could SE be holding off these GBA ports for potential DS remakes? Realistically, could we even see VII-IX reborn on DS if FFIII does well?

Thanks.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. Regardless of what people are saying about the PlayStation 3, it's still the PlayStation 3. It's going to have an installed userbase worth publishing games for throughout its lifespan, so Square-Enix releasing FFXIII on the system will still work out for them. By the time the game is finished, there will be plenty of PS3 owners that will want to get it. Granted, it will probably be for the minority of gamers at that point in time, but Sony and Square have a long history that has worked out well for both sides.

FFV and FFVI are still planned to be released as Game Boy Advance games later this year, and nothing is going to change that. Bumping them up to the DS might not be the best thing, since the two games would be competing with the absolutely gorgeous Final Fantasy III remake on the handheld. The FFIII project has been in development for quite a long time; going back and completely redoing everything in the last of the original SNES Final Fantasy games would probably take more time and effort than it's probably worth.

I think it's interesting you mention a possible modern-era Final Fantasy remake on the DS. The only obvious choice for a handheld port is Final Fantasy VII, and if the Square half of Square-Enix were do it, wouldn't that be ironic? We'll see what happens after the company releases FFs III, V and VI, and then the promised Crystal Chronicles DS game after that. I'm sure S-E has more Final Fantasy in store for Nintendo's handhelds beyond their current release list, but we'll just need to wait and see what they've got planned.

I've just finished reading your mailbag, and you made some critical errors when talking about an MMORPG appearing on a console.

Firstly, the Wii does have enough physical memory (RAM) to run an online RPG. The biggest problem is displaying the other characters and constantly updating them, which is more to deal with the internet connection. The Wii easily meets those requirements, as there are a lot of online RPGs like Ragnarok Online and Everquest which don't require high end PCs.

The second error is to do with permanent storage (Flash memory, HD space). This has NOTHING to do with the performance of the game, but only deals with storage of updates and patches. The Wii is built to be upgraded with external hard drives and SD cards, and would be incredibly inexpensive and easy to upgrade it to allow for patches to be downloaded. In fact, the 24 hour system Nintendo described would be PERFECT for online RPGs, as the patches would download automatically to your Wii while you sleep.

I keep saying that an online version of Pokemon would be the next logical step in the series for the next big addition, but my ideas typically fall on deaf ears. The graphics wouldn't need to be all that great, in fact it could be a download on the Virtual Console. Regardless, I wanted to express my thoughts and some facts about MMORPGs that may clear things up.

Of course the Wii is capable of online RPGs; my point on the subject last week was that it may not be as capable of massive online RPGs in the style of current PC MMO games. The amount of RAM the Wii has—reportedly under 90MB total—is far less than the min spec requirements for low-end PC games. Ragnarok and Everquest both need 128MB of system RAM minimum. (Granted, the Windows OS takes up most of that space, but the recommended RAM figure for those PC games is too far out of the Wii's capabilities.) Storage space is also not one of Wii's strong points, with only the 512MB of internal flash memory. Most PC MMOs need at least that much hard drive space to function properly, updates or not.

History has shown that any game requiring peripherals or upgrades that do not come standard with the console hardware does not do well. FFXI on the PS2 could have done a lot better if the hard drive it required was standard on the PS2 hardware. Instead, Square was asking everyone to buy a PS2 HDD along with the game... at $100, it only appealed to the hardest core FF fans who could have picked up the cheaper PC version. Phantasy Star Online on the GameCube was in the same boat; not only did players need to buy the game, they had to get the hard-to-find GameCube modem or broadband adapter as well. PSO on the GC did fairly well, but there was no chance of it becoming a mainstream hit due to the mainstream not having the necessary equipment to play it.

A developer could make a traditional MMO game work on the Wii if they packed in a large SD card or included an external hard drive. However, since a developer would be requiring something that is not native to the Wii hardware, it may be a tougher sell to the public. (The SD card would be the best bet, but there's no guarantee that Nintendo will allow constant reading/writing to the SD card like PC games require from a hard drive.) It would be worlds easier for a developer to make an MMO game for the PS3 and/or Xbox 360, as those systems have plenty of RAM and hard drive space for current MMO games to be easily (and perhaps cheaply) ported over. At this point, it seems to me that it would be a much more viable option to keep traditional MMOs on those systems instead of the Wii.

That doesn't mean an MMO on the Wii is impossible, though. The newest EGM has a report in their rumor section that an exclusive MMO for Wii could be in development from Square. Whatever it is, it probably won't resemble anything that we see in MMOs on the PC, but if they can make it so there are lots of people displayed in a large persistent world that uses the stock Wii hardware, I will be pleasantly surprised. I might even pick it up if it won't cost me too much month-to-month.

Ok Sir Bag.

I've read alot of the questions people have asked you (some quite difficult) and you have answered them with ease but I lets see how you answer my question.

Sure the wii looks amazing and it's gotten good reviews and I'm getting one the day it comes out BUT! How do you think (honestly) the wii is going to do against the ps3 and even the xbox 360? I've talked to some people and for some the 600 dollar price tag isn't phasing them (it just about put me in the grave personally). So what do you think? Is the wii going to completely destroy the competition or will we see the same thing that happened with the cube?

Honestly? I don't have a clue. I don't think anyone knows how things will play out until all three systems are out there and people are buying software for them. The Wii is still an unknown at this point, even after seeing how it works. It really boils down to how Nintendo markets it and how the general public reacts to it.

There's also the “Wii60" and “PSWii" factor. Both Microsoft and Sony see the Wii as a great second system to complement their own hardware. If customers hold true to that, everyone that owns either an Xbox 360 or a PS3 will also get a Wii, thereby making Nintendo the market leader even though it could be considered the “second system" to many. Nintendo's goal was to distance themselves from the path that Sony and Microsoft decided to go down, and they've succeeded big time. If the so-called “competition" is endorsing Nintendo's system, are they really competition?

It is very possible for the Wii to outsell the PS3 and 360 combined, but there's also the possibility of it failing completely. I think the best measure of Wii success will be how much of the potential Nintendo can cash in on, not necessarily how it fares against the other consoles. If the company can get people that have never played games before to start doing it on their system, the word “Nintendo" can once again be synonymous with games, which may be more important than how much hardware Nintendo can sell in the long run.

So ends another scorchin' hot edition of the mailbag. Thanks for reading and writing in, we really do appreciate it! I hope you guys have some questions to ask of me for next week, because the mailbag inbox is currently empty. We need your questions to fill it back up again, so send an email to the address to the bottom of the page and we'll see if it's good enough for the next update.

Don't forget to leave comments in the Mailbag Talkback forum thread and read the mailbag back issues to see topics previously covered in this space.

Until next week, stay cool out there!