The Wiikend is here

[Burt]

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...

[Nate the Great]

And a not very subtle one at that...

[Grayvorn]

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!!)

[Nate the Great]

Do you use the Wii Wheel?

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

[Nate the Great]

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

[ijdgaf]

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.

[Nate the Great]

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?

[ijdgaf]

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.

[Nate the Great]

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?

[AKAArzosah]

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.

[Nate the Great]

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.

[AKAArzosah]

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...

[Nate the Great]

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.

[ijdgaf]

Originally Posted by AKAArzosah

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

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.

[Nate the Great]

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.

[ijdgaf]

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).

[Nate the Great]

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?

[ijdgaf]

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

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

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

[Nate the Great]

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?