In the last bag you mentioned that Rhythm Heaven is scheduled to be released in America sometime in 2007. Is this just hearsay or is it official? This is the first "confirmation" I've seen that the game will see a stateside release.

- vudu
Chicago, IL

There's nothing official on Rhythm Heaven at the moment. Last week, I said it should show up in America next year this year; I seriously doubt Nintendo will not bring it over. It's an awesome Game Boy Advance game, and there are a lot of people who just purchased the system during the holidays that will be looking something that fits that description. Hell, I purchased it when it launched, and I'm still looking for awesome new GBA games.

I will be flabbergasted if Nintendo does not mention at least a release date for Rhythm Heaven before the mid-point of the year. They usually announce some new information about upcoming releases with their yearly financial report, which will hit at the end of March. That would be a good time to make such an announcement. And they'd better announce it.

Hi there,

I was wondering: when the Mario Mix DDR game first came out, I was living over my landlord, so I gave it a pass. Now that I have a nice concrete floor to jump on, there doesn't seem to be any left anywhere in the world, save ebay, and there they are going for over double the original MSRP.

What happened to this game? What should have been such a hit instead looks like it dried up completely, even before the gamecube did.

Bag, where did Mario Mix go?

- adamaged
montreal

We were asking that question when it was first released. After the initial shipment of the game ran dry, the Mario DDR bundle became impossible to find. People were worried that it had already been discontinued, not even a few weeks after it came out. Six months later, Nintendo finally got around to sending out more units on a pre-order basis.

The game had a limited release. A very limited release. The first run was small, and the second run was just large enough to satisfy everyone who complained about not getting the game on the first run. Once those people were taken care of, Nintendo stopped manufacturing the game altogether (which was apparently the original plan the first time around). The eBay prices are high because the game is rare, and unlikely to be found in the wild. The game is no longer in circulation, and probably hasn't been for more than six months.

If you really want the game, your best chance would be to just bite the bullet and grab one from eBay. You're not going to find it anywhere else, honestly.

Hello,

Do you think that nintendo will ever have an updated version to the mii channel with more hair, mouthes, and maybe clothes. I think that the mii channel has HUGE potential but there aren't enough choices. I mean no mowhawk for Mr T.? Come on Nintendo!

- jg233
USA

I suppose it is possible to add items to the Mii Channel creator, but then there may be an issue of sending Miis with the new items to a Wii console that doesn't have the Mii Channel update installed. A mandatory update would cover those connected to the Internet, but there will still be cases when someone can bring over a Mii to an offline system via the Wii remote. If you bring over a mohawk-topped Mr. T Mii over to someone's house, how will an un-updated system display him?

I'd still like to see more parts and pieces for Mii creation. An option to add your own drawings and designs to your Miis would also rock, even though it probably wouldn't work with how Nintendo stores Mii information. But hey, you never know.

My brother, the genius that he is, decided to put his Wii Sports case in the side of the baggage that he checked into the airport this morning. Needless to say, Wii Sports is no more; it snapped right in half. Is there any way he can get a replacement from Nintendo, or find the game for sale on its own someplace? I'm not going to buy him another Wii; considering I waited in line for three hours to get him his system (eight hours for mine the night before, at Toys'R'Us in Times Square NYC), I'm a little bit pissed off, to say the last.

Thanks,

- Jason
New York City

That's bad luck. You can't go anywhere to buy the game separately, I know that for sure. I think your best bet would be to call up Nintendo's customer support line at 1-800-255-3700 (I'm such a nerd for knowing that by heart) and explain to them your situation. Getting a free replacement is what you'd want, but barring that I'm hopeful they could get you a fresh copy without charging you full price for it.

Oh, and while you're on the phone with Nintendo, be sure to thank them for the lovely Wii Sports cardboard sleeve that wasn't enough to protect your disc from breaking into pieces. It's not like we needed one of those sturdy full-size DVD cases for the game!

Hey, what's up? I have what would seem a general question, but I can't find any info on it besides E3 screenshots.

Simply put - where is my Zapper attachment? I know Red Steel blows, and Elebits wouldn't be too great with it, but my innergamer requires such a peripheral.

- HateMach1ne
Indiana

There it is. Under the glass. Where you can't touch it. (You can click on the images for a bigger picture, though.)

But seriously. Nintendo labeled the Zapper as a "work in progress" at E3, so it wasn't finalized like the Wii remote was at that time. Granted, there's not much to finalize on a piece of plastic, but there's no need to release an accessory that doesn't have any games that natively support it. You don't want to use it with Red Steel or Call of Duty 3, because they both require independent movement of the controller halves to comfortably perform actions. Do you want your aiming cursor to go haywire every time you need to jostle the nunchuk?

Zapper 2.0 won't be made available until there are games that support it. Nintendo will be making games for it eventually, of course, but there's also a third party game that would make excellent use of the device. Resident Evil: Gun Survivor was one of the game mentioned when Nintendo showed off the Wii controller peripheral. The gameplay would be a perfect fit for the thing. Will it happen, though? That's up for Capcom to decide.

I hope the finished Zapper doesn't look like it did at E3. I want the controller incorporate a kickback motor (like the Namco GunCon) and a pump-action slide for one-handed shotgun reloading. That would be wicked cool.

I was just watching some episodes of Earthworm Jim on youtube and it was great. My question is what happen to him? The super nintendo games were great and I did like the N64 game also. Is there any chance of a Wii or a next gen game starring Earthworm Jim?

- Ali
NYC

If I'm not mistaken, Shiny is currently developing a PSP version of Earthworm Jim, though I haven't heard much about it since earlier this year last year. The franchise is very much alive, so I suppose there's a chance of Jim showing up on console again one of these days. Let's hope the SNES/Genesis games show up on Virtual Console in the meantime!

So... I got my Wii component cables... but in the interest of playing my Wii on almost any TV I come across (like my cousin's old TV during New Years without AV inputs... we played original NES SMB3 instead) I was wondering if you guys could point me to any RF modulator/adapter solutions for my Wii travel bag?

- Kairon
Fremont, CA USA

I did a quick search to see if Nintendo was offering an RF modulator for the Wii, and it looks like they aren't. Third parties aren't either, as much as I can tell. That's not too surprising since the RF adapter is an ancient device nowadays. You can forget about a one-cable solution to your problem.

If you really want to play the Wii on a crummy old TV set, you should head over to Radio Shack or some other store that carries an RF modulator and pick one up. They usually need to be plugged in separately, though, so it's not the most portable thing in the world.

If you want the best solution, tell your cousin got a new television. All of them have A/V jacks now, which is why Nintendo, or any other game console manufacturer isn't offering the option anymore.

You missed a trick when answering the question about playing your digital music library on the Wii - Nintendo was kind enough to make the software available for a free download until June. It's called "Opera".

If you have a real computer, all you have to do to enjoy your music library for free is go to the "Sharing" pane of the OSX "System Preferences" and turn on Personal Web Sharing. Then use Opera to surf to your computer on the local subnet (the Sharing pane will tell you the address to surf to - usually just the computer name followed by .local) and click on the files in your Music folder.

If you want do more than just play one song at a time, or if you have some third-rate loser machine that doesn't do proper local web services (ie: a Windows machine) then you can grab a copy of Dot-Tunes (http://www.dottunes.net) and use that to serve your iTunes library. It offers your songs by artist, title, genre, or playlist, and works seamlessly, and turns your Wii into an instant audio centre.

Note that using Dot-Tunes with a Windoze box will downgrade the audio quality somewhat, but that is to be expected since audio sounds like crap on a Windoze box anyway.

- geekboy
geekboy.ca

Thanks for the helpful informa--hey, you're a Mac user, aren't you? Well, let me tell you about a little piece of software called "Windows is Better than Any Apple OS Because all the Big Games and Programs are Developed and Released for Windows Because Macs Suck." Oh, what's that? You can't run it on your Mac? Poor baby.

Oh, uh...what were you talking about again? Using your Wii as a streaming web server to play your audio files through the Opera browser? Oh yeah, that's a nice trick. If your television's audio setup is better than what you've got on your (most likely Windows-based) computer, then yeah, I could see that being a pretty neat alternative. People are finding a lot of cool workarounds with the Wii browser, and I hope that the full version of it will open up even more doors. It would be better if Nintendo included stuff like a streaming music player in the Wii firmware, though.

Greetings, Windyman --

My question is regarding the difference between Progressive Scan and S-Video. Namely, is there one? I have an SDTV with S-Video input ports. If I hook my Wii up using S-Video cables (assuming I can find any), will my games run in Progressive Scan? I am admittedly speaking out of complete ignorance. Educate me!

- Snoogans
Hamden, CT

Certainly. There are three types of video cables that we here in North America should be concerned with: Composite, S-Video and Component.

Composite video is delivered via the yellow plug on the cable that came included with your Wii console. It's at the bottom of the video quality ladder. It's fine for most people, but if you can go better, you should. You cannot get progressive scan feeds with composite video.

S-Video is a step up from composite. The plug with four pins brings a clearer, sharper and brighter picture than a regular feed, but like composite, S-Video doesn't have the capacity to transmit a progressive signal.

Component video is the best the Wii can do. The video signal is carried over three video cables (red, green and blue, though each cable doesn't quite transmit their respective color), and is required if you want to get a progressive scan signal. However, you also need a television that has component inputs and the ability to display a progressive signal (in the Wii's case, a 480p signal).

On a relative image quality scale of 1 to 10, I would give composite a 3, S-Video a 6 and component a 10. You can't go progressive with your setup, but S-Video isn't such a bad thing to be stuck with. This ties nicely in with one of last week's questions, wherein a I answered with another question: Where are the Wii S-Video cables? A lot of people got back to me with links to third party Wii S-Video cables, which I assume will work with the console just fine. However, I was interested in the official Nintendo cables, which are still M.I.A. I would personally prefer to have cables from Nintendo, but there may come a point where I need to cave and pick up some from someone else.

So now you know!

hey guys this site is the best one out there. anyways on to my first question. this has probably been asked before but I have to know from the masters.

1) do you guys think nintendo would eventually through firmware updates enable the wii to be compatible with usb keyboards and mice? because even nintendo can't deny that while the wiimote interface is decent, nothing can really get much better than a keyboard and mouse.

2)while we're on the subject of firmware updates, do you guys think that nintendo will also eventually enable the wii to recognize external hard drives as a form of memory storage? cause if I remember correctly, recognizing an sd card was enabled through an update, and not available from the start.

- ghost of hyrule

1 and 2) Yes. What is recognized by the USB ports is something that's a part of the on-board Wii firmware. Nintendo could update the console to allow any USB device they wanted. As long as the correct drivers are there and the device is supported within the Wii interface, Nintendo could make anything Wii compatible (Wiipatable?). Nintendo won't do it unless they have a good reason to, though.

Hey Guys! I just wanted to know if there is any other way I can get any virtual console games other than high speed internet. The problem is that I live in a small town that has a store and that's it. Therefore, there is no way I can get connected to the net. If I really need to I know someone that has it but I don't want to lug all my stuff around for a couple games. Please say they make discs or something. :)

- Johnny D
Fargo, MI

Unfortunately, the only way to buy Virtual Console games is through a net-connected Wii console. The nature of the online shop and how Wii games are stored on the system are the main reasons for this. Without Internet access, you can't get to the classics. At least, not right now.

As everyone knows, Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade is similar to Virtual Console, in that all of the games can only be purchased through Xbox Live. (Or at least, the Xbox 360 versions. You can go to the store and buy a deck of Uno cards, after all.) However, Microsoft did release a compilation of XBLA games on a disc entitled Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged so that people without a broadband connection could get their hands on some arcade lovin'. I think Nintendo would be wise to eventually release a Wii disc with a dozen or so VC games like MS did. That way, they can wring some extra money from those that can't get on the Internet, and also entice some people to grab a physical copy of the games they downloaded. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

I'm out of questions again! If you guys want me to keep this up, you're going to have to send in some more questions using the mailbag submission form. You can find that by hitting the link below. Remember, I answer any question having to do with Nintendo, so you don't need to limit your correspondence to just the Wii. Not that I'm complaining, but hey, variety is the spice of life. And he who controls the spice, controls the universe. Or something like that.

Unlike four NFL teams, I'll be back next week! (The Jets will win it all next year. You'll see!)