hey im a huge nintendo fan and i had a question about its online capabilities. Now I know it's free and that makes me very happy using that point against some of my friends who hate nintendo. but i was wondering if it would be clean. The fact that its free made some of my friends bring up the point that it may lag or be tacky and cheap or shutdown a lot or just blatantly not work very well. I trust that nintendo would be smarter than the release a crappy Wifi connection to loyal gaming fans but I'm still curious about it since its free wouldnt they just lose money to keep it running correctly?

thank you.

The quality of an online gaming service has nothing to do with the price of it. The DS is a good example: all you need is a stable wireless connection and you're playing. Wii will employ a similar system. People like to complain about friend codes and how Xbox Live is better, but to them I say that's the point entirely. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is not Xbox Live. There are things that $50 a year can get you that you can not get for free, but having a stable, centralized service that allows for playing games online is not one of them.

Anyway, a gaming service alone is not the sole factor in bringing a good online experience to the masses. The quality of an online game rests completely in the hands of the developer making it, as it always has. Vicarious Visions and Activision clearly showed that the DS is capable of a very robust online mode, with Tony Hawk's American Sk8Land featuring downloadable goals, leaderboards, ghost data and a full-blown online community to compliment it. Downhill Jam will go ahead a few more steps and feature competitive multiplayer with in-game voice chat. It's a great value to have all of that included without needing to pay something extra to access it all.

To segue from paying, Nintendo said during the middle of the GameCube's lifespan that it would not enter the online business unless it would be profitable for them. To Nintendo, online is just another opportunity for them to sell more hardware and software, and the additional sales that come from that should more than cover the costs of putting together the game servers and Nintendo Wi-Fi site. Think of how and why the DS is successful. Part of it has to do with it offering free online games. Do you think it would be selling as well if it didn't offer that feature? The Wii will be in the same boat.

So, in need of some questions? Here's a pretty odd one. Will there be any way to transfer Pokemon from the Game Boy family to the DS (or any upcoming console)?

Actually, I'm a little confused about what's coming out. Could you list a breakdown of upcoming or rumored poke-games?

Gold/Silver had an option to transfer old Pokémon from the Red/Green/Blue/Yellow versions, though I don't recall seeing that in any recent versions. Granted, I haven't played an actual Pokégame since Silver, but I think I would have heard of the option had it existed in games after that. I hope that, for the sake of all the Pokémaniacs out there, there will be some way to transfer GBA Pokémon to the new DS games. Since the GBA slot in the DS hardware can make such a process easy to do, that's all the better reason for them do it...and fewer excuses if they don't.

Now, let's see if I can summarize what games are coming out and what works with what...

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon will be out next month. The Red Version is on the GBA and the Blue Version is on the DS. The two probably hook up in some way, but how is unknown, since I don't think the Red Version has been shown to the public anywhere. It seems unlikely that either of these games will work with the other games in the series that are coming up.

October brings Pokémon Ranger to the U.S. It is reported that it will hook up with the DS Diamond/Pearl games in some form. Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, which will be released in Japan next month, can connect to the Wii game, Pokémon Battle Revolution in much the same way things worked in Pokémon Colosseum. Also, although Ranger works with Diamond/Pearl we don't know if it will work with Battle Revolution.

Gotta catch 'em all!

Hi there Planet Gamecube.

I have a question and a comment

First, I've been noticing that while the graphics so far on the wii aren't incredible (by supposed PS3 standards, anyway), that they all seem to share a distinct color saturation effect (see: Red Steel and the Spongebob kart game in particular). I don't know much about the graphics engine, but is this a particular feature, or is there a reason developers seem to be using this effect? I for one think the screenshots are beautiful and I hope they continue to use it.

Second, to all those Wii Zelda controller naysayers, calm down. Haven't we all learned to trust that Nintendo's going to put out an awesome Zelda game? I mean really, if there's any game they aren't going to mess up, it's Zelda!

thanks mailbag,

Christina.M

I think the effect you are referring to in your first question is light blooming. To sum it up, the “aura" of all lights in an area are intensified in a way that gives the impression that things are brighter than they really are, giving things a soft, pleasing look. If the effect is subtle, you get impressive looking games without the need for big hardware. If it's overdone, things soften up to the point where everything is more on the blurry side. Blooming is just another technique that developers have to make games look better; PS3 and 360 games are using it all over the place as well.

Your comment on Zelda is basically what I've been echoing since the controller controversy began: Nintendo doesn't mess up Zelda games, and I don't think they'll mess up with the flagship title of a new hardware launch.

I understand that the Sega is going to show up on the virtual console via genesis. Do you think that they will eventually move to the Saturn & Dreamcast? How powerful will the virtual console be? For example a developer who wants to make an original game for the virtual console, what hardware will they be limited too? 32bit? 64bit? Etc..

Brandon

There won't be anything on Virtual Console that goes any higher in power than the 16-bit machines. Although the Wii hardware may be capable of emulating the processors of newer older systems, there would be no place to store the CD-sized games. Saturn and DC games maxed out at 700MB and 1000MB, respectively. (The largest N64 games were 64MB.) 512MB is the standard storage space Wii is equipped with. If someone purchases a VC game that takes up all that memory, where are you going to save game data if you don't have access to SD cards?

Here's something that's been bothering me for a while, but as far as I know hasn't been addressed. What's the deal with the Nintendo Health and Safety Warning? They've had a more comprehensive version of it in all of their instruction manuals since the very beginning-what was the motivation for plugging this into the startup of each game, and even into the DS firmware? Was it in response to something, or completely preemptive? Most importantly, do you see it going away any time soon? In a world of endless logo loadups, one more isn't exactly a boon.

Today's society is one that sues first and asks questions later. Remember that one lawsuit at McDonalds, about the lady who sued when she spilled hot coffee on herself? She claimed there was no indication given by McDonalds that the coffee was hot and could potentially be dangerous. Everyone thought, “well of course coffee is hot!" That would seem like a no-brainer to anyone else, but she sued over it anyway and won.

Nintendo has had to deal with those kinds of cases in the past—the Mario Party safety glove showed up after people complained about pains when digging their palms into the N64 controller to forcibly rotate the analog stick at inhuman speeds. Nintendo is displaying the warnings to prevent any of those kinds of stupid lawsuits from showing up in the future, basically telling everyone that any potentially harmful stupid things they do with a game is their own fault.

It's the first thing seen when booting a DS game, and it'll be the first thing seen when powering up the Wii for the first time. Nintendo doesn't have a choice, really. People that don't know how to control themselves when using something like the Wii controller can cause serious harm to themselves and others. (Dance Dance Revolution games carry similar warnings for similar reasons.) If someone waves a lawsuit at Nintendo, claiming Nintendo was at fault for injures caused by the Wii remote after totally missing the ball in a game of WiiTennis and throwing it against the wall in anger only to have it bounce off and hit them in the face, Nintendo can just say “we warned you on the health and safety screen" and be done with it.

Remember when Nintendo promised more hardware secrets, which everyone believed would be revealed at E3 2006. Well, what was revealed was a speaker on the controller. I don't know about you guys, but I was expecting something a little more groundbreaking. That brings us to the present, the Leipzig Gaming Convention. "Wii Prove Our Promise," sounded, well, promising. People were either anticipating a release date, price, hardware secrets, or all of the above. As of this writing Leipzig isn't over, but do you really believe that Nintendo has anything else up its sleeve? There are only 2 to 2 1/2 months before this thing is released, do you think the Wii is what you see is what you get?

Mikey

“Wii Prove Our Promise," said Nintendo. They didn't prove anything that they hadn't already, or at least not to North America. Battalion Wars II and Strikers Charged were nice additions to the Wii lineup, but I think the real purpose of the event was to show off the system and explain the company philosophy directly to Europe. E3 is (was?) a global event, but one that primarily caters to the United States. GC Germany is the biggest games convention in Europe now, and as such companies will use it as the best opportunity to show off to that part of the world. I was expecting more than what we got, though.

To answer your question, I really think Nintendo has everything about the Wii out in the open. The basics of everything, at least. The hardware is supposedly finalized now, so Nintendo can't spring any more surprises without screwing developers out of critical information. The controller at E3 seemed complete as well; I can't see Nintendo adding anything else to it that wouldn't make it more complicated than it already is. The only big secrets left are how WiiConnect24 and Virtual Console will work, though it's not a secret that those features exist.

Launch details are also an unknown. We thought we would hear a little more about that at the show, too, but it wasn't to be. Tokyo Game Show (now just a month away) would normally be the big event that's next up, but now there are details that Nintendo is planning a special event in New York on September 14, a week before TGS. There's a 99% chance that's the magic date in which Nintendo will announce the North America (and possibly worldwide) launch details, and maybe even give out more info on their online plans. Before that was announced, we assumed that Nintendo was going to make a presentation in Tokyo, but that's only a few days after this NYC event. They may not be there, if the timing of the announcement is any indication. We'll know within the next 30 days, I guess.

There's only one page this week. I'm only human, you know! Keep sending those questions in, and try to ask about topics that we've never covered before. No one wants to hear the same old commentary...let's keep it fresh, yo!

I still have some questions left over from the week and also some that came in today that were too late for this edition. Check back next week, though. I'll be here, but will you be? You'd better, or else!

Toodles.

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