I'm having a ton of fun with a few DS games... multiplayer wireless with another DS. Some of those are fantastic. And there is always wii sports... Other than that, it's Bridge Commander for me...
Did I ever metion that I work in a office type place called 'The Bridge'? In a part of the building called.... 'Operations' or 'Ops'? Annnnnd, we have a server called... 'D-Kora'?
Must be a secret star trek fan in my place...

And a not very subtle one at that...

I have been playing Excite Truck for almost 2 weeks soild now. It is perhaps the greatest racing game ever!!!!!!

Unlocked all but maybe 3 trucks, and Super Excite mode is proving bloody tough but man I love this game!

(My 5th post..........here's to small achievements, yay!!)

Do you use the Wii Wheel?

At least Mario Galaxy and Brawl have official release dates now.

Any word on the value and ease of use of Virtual Console games?

Virtual Console is good, but I only use it for the systems I don't actually own. I got a Genesis game (Ecco the Dolphin), an NES game (Kid Icarus), and a TurboGrafix game (Bomberman '93).

The first two are way too damned hard. The third is an absolutely amazing party game. I had no idea that the Bomberman franchise had ever churned out anything remotely decent. The game is that and more.

I'm excited about WiiWare, but I don't think it'll hold a candle to XBox Live Arcade. Which I am enjoying the hell out of with my BRANDNEWXBOX360.

Man, birthdays rock.

There are so many jokes I could make about that first sentence. It almost sounds like you don't own the games on VC. How would that work? Gaming via techopathy?

Maybe something like the current version of Napster?

Somewhat accurate, actually. If the Wii craps out or you trade it in for the WiiII or whatnot, I can't imagine you'd get to keep your downloads....

Though that's hardly a Nintendo-specific problem. All three systems this generation have downloadable content. I really have to wonder how that's going to work out in the eight generation.

At least the 360's hard drive is removable and transferable.

I'd imagine that the next console would have even cheaper legacy games. Then again, my understanding is that once a game is bought for a specific Revolution account, you can delete it and reinstall later as much as you want. Perhaps if you shut down your Revolution, you can just reinstall the same games onto your Revolution 2 for free. Only one system at a time, right?

Quick questions about the DS...

Does the wireless internetty connection thingy (is it called WiFi?) work automatically or do you need to buy an additional thing?

Is there a difference between the 'original' DS and the DS Lite?

Do you think it woud be worth having a DS here in Australia? I don't think it's as much of a hit here, is the multiplayer option a major part of gaming or what?

I'm not a 'serious gamer' so I don't understand all these things, but I'm considering buying one.

Questions about DSs are what Wikipedia is for. But seriously, I only own N64 and GBA (original), so I'm not the best person to answer this question.

I tried reading through Wikipedia but could only find technical specifications, and nothing to definitively state that the DS internetty thing comes included.

I'll try reading through again...

One of the major points of the DS is built-in wifi. I think that they make an ethernet modem built into a GBA cart as an alternative, but I'm not sure.

The DS does indeed have built in wifi. I don't know how savvy you are with wifi networks (I'm not terribly so myself). The system itself requires nothing to go online other than a wireless network. You can input WEP encryption keys if you have a secured network in your home. However, you can't put in a MAC address login/password -- which is how my campus wifi network was set up.

It's hardly a deal breaker I'd think for the system however. You can play online or in person with friends on some games, but there are quite a few fantastic single player experiences to be found as well.

I own a Wii, DS, PSP, and 360 out of this generation's systems. The DS is by far the cheapest ($130 new), has been out the longest, and has the most developed library of them all. Also, it's well on track toward becoming the best selling system of all time -- which is especially impressive considering the current winner is the Game Boy. Yes, that includes all three iterations of the Game Boy.

There's no substantial difference between the DS and the Lite, at least in terms of playability. The Lite looks classier, the screen is brighter, and the stylus is heftier and easier to use. But other than that, you can basically use 'em both the same.

If you're seriously considering getting a system, it might be worth checking out some reviews on a site like http://www.ign.com or http://www.gamespot.com to see what there is on the system worth checking out. Keep in mind, both DSes play Game Boy Advance games too, so you've really got two systems worth of libraries available.

Yeah, but DSs don't play original or Color Gameboy games. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into my full Gameboy DS rant here, you can search for it if you want, I just wanted to point out the bug huge gaping maw of a flaw the thing has one more time.

And don't worry. This will be the last time I point out that 47.27 million people worldwide don't care about that all that much.

So somebody who's not a "serious gamer" probably wouldn't care much either?

(damnit, why can't I get embedded links to work on this site anymore? The link is here: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/200...25e.pdf#page=8 -- or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintend...elease_Q2_2007 if Wikipedia will suffice).

All I'm seeing is columns of numbers. I don't suppose anyone could translate the accountingbabble for me?

Yeah, but how much bigger would that figure be with a Gameboy DS? Millions of people trading in their older Gameboys and buying a new one?

God, why do I take the bait? I've personally never seen any statistics for people sitting at home with old systems reluctant to buy new ones based on limited backward compatability. I can't imagine it's a very large number. It hasn't really stopped the 360 or the DS this generation, nor did it stiffle Super Nintendo sales. The 360 is tromping the PS3 in HD console sales, the DS is outselling the PSP 2 to 1, and the Super Nintendo maintained a similar lead against the formidable Sega Genesis. Most consumers don't really care too much about that sort of thing, if I may generalize. Certainly not the casual crowd.

And hey, some of us are enjoying Phantom Hourglass while keeping a perfectly capable GBA in the closet for that retro fix. Hooray!

Here's a link to an article about the DS passing the 50 million sold mark: http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertain...leid=346391286

I shall never forgive Microsoft for dropping MS-DOS! NEVER! :mad: :madder: :wowi'mmad: :etc:

Oh, the DOS issue is dear to my heart. I still have many DOS games that are near to unplayable because XP can't pretend to be DOS for the sake of the game. Is it really that hard to program? Setting up a program (an official program, not DOSBox or the like) to make a partition that operates on the same clockspeed, emulation for the appropriate audio and video drivers, etc. to make the program THINK that it's on a twenty-year-old DOS computer?

Actually, that pisses me off too. I've owned the original Warcraft for years and not been able to find a computer dumb enough to play it. And my current computer won't play Warcraft II. I think someday when I have some spare change I'll try to track down an old, slowass computer to get my old PC gaming fix. And with Vista's lack of BC as well, I'm thinking I might have to hold onto this machine as well upon the next upgrade.

Don't worry Nate, I have a Colour Gameboy already. Just wish I could get Pokemon Yellow for a decent price (yes I'm lame).

Well, what's decent? I paid ten bucks for mine. Somehow it semicrashed, which meant that the game wouldn't boot, but Pokemon Stadium could still get Pokemon out of it. Weird part is, R/B/Y seems solid-state, but G/S/C has that atrocious button battery that dies out after seven years.

I doubt that. I've replaced the batteries in several original game boy cartidges. The game I've had the longest though (Link's Awakening) hasn't died yet. It's sorta variable. But Nintendo didn't start using solid state in those until the DS, I think. Maybe the GBA, but I doubt it.

You have? Wow. I've read the online instructions for that, and it still seems a bit complicated and risky.

I still wonder why they couldn't remake GB and GBC games for Virtual Console and you could sent it to a blank "Virtual Console" DS card that's designed for them. Since the DS doesn't have a Z80 chip (see my Gameboy DS rants on other threads for the significance of this) you'd have to emulate all of the games, but it must be doable. If the price in Wii Points is proportional to the age and sophistication, it'd probably end up something like original GB games for 300 Wii Points, GBC for 500, right? Plus dozens of games could fit on a card, no doubt.

Putting old Gameboy games on VC is totally doable. They recently added support on there for Neo Geo games, which weren't available at launch. So adding another system should be easy peasy as well.

Blank DS cartridges though? Not gonna happen. Nintendo consistantly goes out of there way to make their games on media that only they have access to. They don't want people to rip their stuff, or put out non-Nintendo approved software, etc. It's why the N64 didn't use CD-ROMs, why the GameCube and Wii use a proprietary optical disc, and why the DS uses nonstandard flash cards.

Well, not "blank" exactly. It'd have a sort of framing program for the Gameboy Virtual Console games. No doubt it'd have some form of security lockout in place to prevent anything except the Revolution that you specifically link to it (i.e. only Revolution number XXXX can communicate with DS number YYYY). I only say that it has to be a card because I don't think that a DS has any onboard memory, does it? Then again, what if the Gameboy games were stored on the Revolution and you could remote access it with the DS if you're in range? Those old games are so small that you probably could remotely play it in real time. It'd be only a step above the e-Reader, wouldn't it?

"easy peasy?"

Rewriting the VC to accept and transmit games from a new system is the least of our problems. It's getting it to the DS safely that's the problem.

Actually, the DS does have a bit of onboard memory. Unfortunately, it whipes clear every time you turn the system off. The memory is used for stuff like single card multiplayer, where somebody with the game transmits a small part of it to the other person's system, so they can play together without two copies.

Incidently, it's also used for demo downloads like you see at Gamestop, Target, etc. Which is coming to the Wii in the nearish future. A channel where you can download DS demos that'll stay on your system until you turn it off.

I guess in theory you could do something similar with old Game Boy games. The sleep mode for the DS is very efficient, so if you didn't mind having to play it and only it on your system until you beat it, it should be doable. Don't see it happening, but certainly feasable.

Well, what if you could tell your DS to synch with your Revolution to update the save files before you turn off the DS? I'd imagine stuff like Tetris high scores would take a mere fraction of a second to synch, while Pokemon might take a minute or so.

I'm just ahead of my time. Hey, but look at Scottendo!

Scottendo: Or they could just let me play my GB and GBC on it?

The High Tech Super Game Boy also sounds cool, but you gotta admit, with the size of TVs today, the resolution would be HORRIBLY crude.

Well in any case, it's not something I'm overly concerned about. I'd much rather play games from cartridges on their original system than download them via some virtual console service. I only make exceptions when I don't own the console in question. Not a big fan of paying for games I already own.

Oh, and to answer a question several posts up, it's actually pretty easy to add a battery to a cartridge. Just pick up the correct bit (which I had to do through a specialty store online who is STILL sending me junk mail). Unscrew the bit, crack out the battery, and ducktape a new one back in.

Easy peasy.

I'd almost rather they had come out with a GBA cartridge that had Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal all on it. No doubt they'd all fit. Maybe it could even use Pearl and Diamond as a second-party trading partner for trading evolutions.

So is the PS2s.... it's just nobody has one.

I was going to say "With an axe!", but as you can see I have not really restrained myself from doing so. ;)

So Sonic is officially a member of the Brawl crew. That'll be neat, but I still think that his talents aren't suitable for a small platform format. That is, unless you could have him do the old "moving so fast he can hit you a hundred times from a hundred different angles in a second" routine, which I doubt.

(blink blink) That's random...

...i like Sonic, alright. Whats wrong with a love between man and blue hedgehog?

(blink blink BLINK) Ahem. Moving on...

So I just read the ad for Guitar Hero 3, and I was wondering: How do the wireless guitar controllers work?

1. The guitars interface along the same bandwith as a regular Wiimote, essentially making them a substitute.
2. A Wiimote hooks onto the back or something, making the guitar a mere extension akin to a Wii Wheel.
3. The guitar uses a reciever that attaches to a Gamecube port, akin to a Wavebird.

4. None of the above, though 2 is closest.

The guitar hero guitar (seen here, note location of Wiimote) is an extension that you plug the wiimote into, like you would with the nunchuck. It's not a wii wheel where it's just an elaborate piece of shaped plastic that doesn't actually do anything. Instead it plugs in and plays like you would expect, just with the wiimote attached as well.