Exciting Wiitails

[KRP]

This must be old news but can now get the BBC iPlayer on your Wii.

[CouldBeWorse]

Supposedly Nintendo is re-releasing the GC pad in Wii white with a longer cable...in Japan

Linky linky

[Sigourney Beaver]

Supposedly Nintendo is re-releasing the GC pad in Wii white with a longer cable...in Japan

Linky linky

I'd prefer a white Wavebird with zero cables in the UK.

[El Pibe]

Grrrr...nowhere seems to have Wiimotes on stock. Quite annoying as it means no 2-player fun (Wii fun, at least) for myself and the girlie this evening.

[Dr Seedyman]

What we need is a wireless N64 pad in white with built in rumble. I fucking love the N64 pad.

[Pob]

Is there some magical secret for swapping my Nintendo Stars for Wii Points? Whenever I look at the website it says they are sold out of points, as if I'm trying to buy some kind of physical product.

[SteveH]

What we need is a wireless N64 pad in white with built in rumble. I fucking love the N64 pad.

Exactly! Why the hell they haven't introduced one is amazing. Much better than the classic controller. Hell even a new wavebird with rumble would be better than what they have now. Playing the N64 games isn't the same. And of course for stuff like Ocarina of time where there were hidden caves you could only find with the controller vibrating, well, can't do that now unless you plug a bloody wired controller in.

[Major Britten]

Exactly! Why the hell they haven't introduced one is amazing. Much better than the classic controller. Hell even a new wavebird with rumble would be better than what they have now. Playing the N64 games isn't the same. And of course for stuff like Ocarina of time where there were hidden caves you could only find with the controller vibrating, well, can't do that now unless you plug a bloody wired controller in.

Erm youve not tried playing with a wired gamecube controller have you? None of the VC games have rumble support

[SteveH]

Erm youve not tried playing with a wired gamecube controller have you? None of the VC games have rumble support

You're shitting me That's wank! It's the only reason I've been looking online for a gamecube controller extension cable. I was hoping to play Starfox64, 1080 etc, the way they were intended to be played. No rumble....I guess they believed Sony when they tried to convince everyone it was last gen.

[Floppy]

I would suggest the Hori GC-GBA Player joypads for Virtual Console play, but they seem to have become very rare and expensive on the secondary market recently. Basically Super NES pads, but they connect to GC controller ports. And available in purple and black. I pretty much swear by them (although most Super NES games on the VC, you'd be better off with the Classic controller). I hope they get re-released in white at some point...

[citation deducer]

I've been developing a new theory about exactly why the DS isn't gimmicky but the wii is. The basic mistake Ninty made with the wii is that whereas the DS just added stuff, the wii took stuff away.

This meant that the core controls which work well with traditional games weren't available. Developers were forced to shoehorn in compromised controls or make something that properly utilises motion controls, and as they've struggled to get to grips with them, these have tended to be average, or good but overly simple.

Even first party games sometimes feel like they are crying out for more buttons. This never happened on the DS. All the proper controls were there and were utilised by developers making traditional games, but the touch screen could be incorporated into stuff to whatever degree suited the game best. The influence of the DS's new control mechanic was solely to open up new possibilities, it was never restrictive.

Now we have games that use the touch screen in a huge variety of ways that we never imagined (see Ninja Gaiden DS for a good example). This has been helped by the fact that touch screen controls offer a level of precision that air gestures can't match, lending themselves better to games.

[Cyhwuhx]

.::: Nah.

The big difference is that the Wii started out with a killer-app that consequently influenced every game after that. Whereas the DS never got off at a right start and allowed much more experimentation (for both devs and consumers) as a result.

The Wii is pigeonholed, it's both its blessing and its curse.

[Joj]

I would suggest the Hori GC-GBA Player joypads for Virtual Console play, but they seem to have become very rare and expensive on the secondary market recently. Basically Super NES pads, but they connect to GC controller ports. And available in purple and black. I pretty much swear by them (although most Super NES games on the VC, you'd be better off with the Classic controller). I hope they get re-released in white at some point...

You mean these:

Yeah they are pretty fucking lush. I also use them for everything Pre-64 on the VC. However, I really want a good SNES RPG because that's where my fondest memories of the SNES pad are. That's never gonna happen though, right? All the good RPGs on the SNES never made it to pal did they?

I suppose there is LttP, but I personally never got on with it.

[Super Craig]

Super Mario RPG will probably be coming to the PAL VC soon.

[bcass]

Yeah, but it's a very average game, and it hasn't aged particularly well.

[Floppy]

Yeah, but it's a very average game, and it hasn't aged particularly well.

I'd have to say you're right about that. Lost something over the years and wasn't totally awe-inspiring at day one. Don't think it'll be remembered long term as being anything other than the launch pad for Mario & Luigi and the Paper Mario series though. Still rather play it rather than any Final Fantasy snoozefest though...

[R0b]

.::: Nah.

The big difference is that the Wii started out with a killer-app that consequently influenced every game after that. Whereas the DS never got off at a right start and allowed much more experimentation (for both devs and consumers) as a result.

.::: What killer app was this? Wii Sports?!

[Dandy_Sephy]

You mean these:

Yeah they are pretty fucking lush. I also use them for everything Pre-64 on the VC. However, I really want a good SNES RPG because that's where my fondest memories of the SNES pad are. That's never gonna happen though, right? All the good RPGs on the SNES never made it to pal did they?

The pal cart of Secret of Mana goes for £30-£40 boxed typically. There was also Soul Blazer and Illusion of Time (Illusion of Gaia in the us). Other then that you are pretty much right

Also, screw the hori pad, this is the future:

[Jack]

They need to do one of those for the NES pad. It's just not the same without red marks in your palms where the diamond-cutter sharp edges dug in.

[Alex W.]

Nintendo intend to address the limited storage space but will not be providing new hardware to do so. So, play-from-SD-cards then?

[JPickford]

Nintendo intend to address the limited storage space but will not be providing new hardware to do so. So, play-from-SD-cards then?

Most likely. Or a driver for external HDD's.

That said, it's unlikely that the head of Nintendo Europe has accurate info.

[Sigourney Beaver]

That said, it's unlikely that the head of Nintendo Europe has accurate info.

Insane for a global company.

[Darren]

I think there's a really cheap and cheerful solution to the Wii storage problem, which while not as good as an external HD, would be a lot cheaper. And cheerfuller.

They just need to update the firmware so that the Wii main menu shows all the channels (VC games etc.) you've got on the SD card as well as in the main Wii memory. When you try and use one that's not in the Wii memory, there's a short-ish pause* while it deletes enough channels from the Wii to make room, in order of longest time since last used, then transfers it over. This way you'll always have one-touch access to all your VC games with the ones you've played most recently available instantly.

I've not explained that very well but I hope you get the general idea.

*I timed copying Lost Winds (250-odd blocks) from SD to Wii and it took about 50 seconds, which I make as 5 blocks/second. Most VC games are much smaller than that.

[Sigourney Beaver]

Let's not do the memory card speed thing again!

*groans*

[Sarlaccfood]

I think you're right that they'll make it cheap and cheerful, I wouldn't be surprised if they just released a firmware update that let's you use any HDD, SD card usb stick etc. just to be done with it.

[Rhodri]

Nope, it'll be a system wherein you can see quickly from the Wii Menu all the things you've downloaded from the shop, and choose to initiate the re-download straight from there. If you haven't got space, you can delete from this new channel, too.

And hopefully set games to 'age' so a game not played in the last month is auto-deleted (but obviously still re-downloadable).

A boy can dream.

[scottcr]

I agree with swerve - that it'll be a channel that lets you see all your games and download or copy them across quickly.

[Campfire_Burning]

I couldn't find the Wii Music thread, but I thought y'all might want to see this Japanese advert for it:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39727.html

I . . . I don't know what to say.

[Darren]

Sales +1!

[SteveH]

I can only assume no one at Nintendo has actually ever heard a real electric guitar? The video demo of it sounds fucking awful. It's like some keyboard from the early 80's that claimed to replicate hundreds of instruments, but in fact, sound like complete shit.