DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
gunntims0103
by Published on November 22nd, 2006 06:33
news via playfuls
I was going to begin this piece by wishing a late "Happy Birthday!" to Shigeru Miyamoto (who turned 54 last week on November 16), and by talking about how the Wii was originally intended to cost under $100 and stuff. But instead, I'm affraid that a more important message is in order: according to numerous reports received by IGN, there is a really nasty problem with some of the Wii consoles that ran the initial WiiConnect 24 update. And the problem is that, well, the update in question pretty much killed the affected Wiis!
There are two common error codes shown by the console in this case: 110213 and 32002. So should you encounter any such problem, you can either get a replacement Wii from Nintendo, or you can send them the faulty unit and receive it back in good shape along with your saved data - which is a pretty lenghty process. You can get more info on this matter (and on several others, unfortunately it seems there's more of them) by visiting Nintendo's customer service website.
And I'm affraid the bad news don't stop here. As you probably know by now, after the console's North American release, the Wii is still missing some of its most attractive online features: the Wii Opera browser, the Wii News Channel and the Wii Forecast Channel. Nintendo says that the Forecast Channel will be activated on December 20, the News Channel will start airing on January 27, and we may have to wait even longer for the Opera browser! More information about its availability should be revealed in the coming weeks, which doesn't sound too encouraging at all.
Despite all these problems, it looks like the Wii is doing great when it comes to pure gaming. A few days ago I wrote about the console's launch line-up and upcoming Wii games, but only briefly mentioned some classic titles downloadable via the Virtual Console. Well, the VC has been up and running even the day before the launch, so now users can buy Wii Points and download some of their old favorites. And here is the pricing for each game from the classic formats:
- NES games cost 500 Wii Points ($5)
- Super NES and Sega Genesis games cost 800 Wii Points ($8)
- Nintendo 64 games cost 1,000 Wii Points ($10)
- TurboGrafx-16 games will cost at least 600 Wii Points ($6)
Judging by the stats from GameRankings, the Wii games are doing a lot better than the PS3 games so far. The absolute best is, predictably enough, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - with an average score of 96.5% (as opposed to PS3's top title, Resistance: Fall of Man, which only managed to score an average of 88.9%). So despite my earlier hunch that the Wii launch line-up was looking diluted, it actually turns out that the PlayStation 3 "scored" the most appalling games at launch.
In the end, neither Sony nor Nintendo can claim to have achieved a perfect launch. But despite my slight disappointment with the Wii's aforementioned problems, I'm still just as excited about getting one when it launches in Europe early next month. If all goes well for Nintendo from here on, they are hoping to sell 1 million Wii units in North America within the next two to three weeks, and another million by the second week of January. But even so, they are still expecting the console to sell out this Christmas, and supply issues are going to be inevitable in the first few weeks.
However, it's not the console itself that's having a hard time meeting the demand, and it's not the extra Wii remotes either: it's the Nunchuks! Apparently, Nintedo expected people to buy more Wiimotes, and they under-estimated the demand for extra Nunchuk controllers - which are rather hard to find for sale these days, it seems.
Or perhaps they had a good reason for supplying plenty more Wii remotes. Such as... domestic accidents, which are more likely to happen through the frantic use of a Wiimote. One such alleged accident involved a Wii Sports game of bowling, a pair of sweaty hands and a fragile Wiimote strap, and resulted in one cracked TV screen. Quite concerning! But while some brake their household items by mistake, others smash their Wii on purpose. Here, take a look for yourself. The horror... The horror... ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 06:33
news via playfuls
I was going to begin this piece by wishing a late "Happy Birthday!" to Shigeru Miyamoto (who turned 54 last week on November 16), and by talking about how the Wii was originally intended to cost under $100 and stuff. But instead, I'm affraid that a more important message is in order: according to numerous reports received by IGN, there is a really nasty problem with some of the Wii consoles that ran the initial WiiConnect 24 update. And the problem is that, well, the update in question pretty much killed the affected Wiis!
There are two common error codes shown by the console in this case: 110213 and 32002. So should you encounter any such problem, you can either get a replacement Wii from Nintendo, or you can send them the faulty unit and receive it back in good shape along with your saved data - which is a pretty lenghty process. You can get more info on this matter (and on several others, unfortunately it seems there's more of them) by visiting Nintendo's customer service website.
And I'm affraid the bad news don't stop here. As you probably know by now, after the console's North American release, the Wii is still missing some of its most attractive online features: the Wii Opera browser, the Wii News Channel and the Wii Forecast Channel. Nintendo says that the Forecast Channel will be activated on December 20, the News Channel will start airing on January 27, and we may have to wait even longer for the Opera browser! More information about its availability should be revealed in the coming weeks, which doesn't sound too encouraging at all.
Despite all these problems, it looks like the Wii is doing great when it comes to pure gaming. A few days ago I wrote about the console's launch line-up and upcoming Wii games, but only briefly mentioned some classic titles downloadable via the Virtual Console. Well, the VC has been up and running even the day before the launch, so now users can buy Wii Points and download some of their old favorites. And here is the pricing for each game from the classic formats:
- NES games cost 500 Wii Points ($5)
- Super NES and Sega Genesis games cost 800 Wii Points ($8)
- Nintendo 64 games cost 1,000 Wii Points ($10)
- TurboGrafx-16 games will cost at least 600 Wii Points ($6)
Judging by the stats from GameRankings, the Wii games are doing a lot better than the PS3 games so far. The absolute best is, predictably enough, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - with an average score of 96.5% (as opposed to PS3's top title, Resistance: Fall of Man, which only managed to score an average of 88.9%). So despite my earlier hunch that the Wii launch line-up was looking diluted, it actually turns out that the PlayStation 3 "scored" the most appalling games at launch.
In the end, neither Sony nor Nintendo can claim to have achieved a perfect launch. But despite my slight disappointment with the Wii's aforementioned problems, I'm still just as excited about getting one when it launches in Europe early next month. If all goes well for Nintendo from here on, they are hoping to sell 1 million Wii units in North America within the next two to three weeks, and another million by the second week of January. But even so, they are still expecting the console to sell out this Christmas, and supply issues are going to be inevitable in the first few weeks.
However, it's not the console itself that's having a hard time meeting the demand, and it's not the extra Wii remotes either: it's the Nunchuks! Apparently, Nintedo expected people to buy more Wiimotes, and they under-estimated the demand for extra Nunchuk controllers - which are rather hard to find for sale these days, it seems.
Or perhaps they had a good reason for supplying plenty more Wii remotes. Such as... domestic accidents, which are more likely to happen through the frantic use of a Wiimote. One such alleged accident involved a Wii Sports game of bowling, a pair of sweaty hands and a fragile Wiimote strap, and resulted in one cracked TV screen. Quite concerning! But while some brake their household items by mistake, others smash their Wii on purpose. Here, take a look for yourself. The horror... The horror... ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 06:33
news via playfuls
I was going to begin this piece by wishing a late "Happy Birthday!" to Shigeru Miyamoto (who turned 54 last week on November 16), and by talking about how the Wii was originally intended to cost under $100 and stuff. But instead, I'm affraid that a more important message is in order: according to numerous reports received by IGN, there is a really nasty problem with some of the Wii consoles that ran the initial WiiConnect 24 update. And the problem is that, well, the update in question pretty much killed the affected Wiis!
There are two common error codes shown by the console in this case: 110213 and 32002. So should you encounter any such problem, you can either get a replacement Wii from Nintendo, or you can send them the faulty unit and receive it back in good shape along with your saved data - which is a pretty lenghty process. You can get more info on this matter (and on several others, unfortunately it seems there's more of them) by visiting Nintendo's customer service website.
And I'm affraid the bad news don't stop here. As you probably know by now, after the console's North American release, the Wii is still missing some of its most attractive online features: the Wii Opera browser, the Wii News Channel and the Wii Forecast Channel. Nintendo says that the Forecast Channel will be activated on December 20, the News Channel will start airing on January 27, and we may have to wait even longer for the Opera browser! More information about its availability should be revealed in the coming weeks, which doesn't sound too encouraging at all.
Despite all these problems, it looks like the Wii is doing great when it comes to pure gaming. A few days ago I wrote about the console's launch line-up and upcoming Wii games, but only briefly mentioned some classic titles downloadable via the Virtual Console. Well, the VC has been up and running even the day before the launch, so now users can buy Wii Points and download some of their old favorites. And here is the pricing for each game from the classic formats:
- NES games cost 500 Wii Points ($5)
- Super NES and Sega Genesis games cost 800 Wii Points ($8)
- Nintendo 64 games cost 1,000 Wii Points ($10)
- TurboGrafx-16 games will cost at least 600 Wii Points ($6)
Judging by the stats from GameRankings, the Wii games are doing a lot better than the PS3 games so far. The absolute best is, predictably enough, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - with an average score of 96.5% (as opposed to PS3's top title, Resistance: Fall of Man, which only managed to score an average of 88.9%). So despite my earlier hunch that the Wii launch line-up was looking diluted, it actually turns out that the PlayStation 3 "scored" the most appalling games at launch.
In the end, neither Sony nor Nintendo can claim to have achieved a perfect launch. But despite my slight disappointment with the Wii's aforementioned problems, I'm still just as excited about getting one when it launches in Europe early next month. If all goes well for Nintendo from here on, they are hoping to sell 1 million Wii units in North America within the next two to three weeks, and another million by the second week of January. But even so, they are still expecting the console to sell out this Christmas, and supply issues are going to be inevitable in the first few weeks.
However, it's not the console itself that's having a hard time meeting the demand, and it's not the extra Wii remotes either: it's the Nunchuks! Apparently, Nintedo expected people to buy more Wiimotes, and they under-estimated the demand for extra Nunchuk controllers - which are rather hard to find for sale these days, it seems.
Or perhaps they had a good reason for supplying plenty more Wii remotes. Such as... domestic accidents, which are more likely to happen through the frantic use of a Wiimote. One such alleged accident involved a Wii Sports game of bowling, a pair of sweaty hands and a fragile Wiimote strap, and resulted in one cracked TV screen. Quite concerning! But while some brake their household items by mistake, others smash their Wii on purpose. Here, take a look for yourself. The horror... The horror... ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:26
news via thewire
According to the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine, Wii Play will arrive in the Americas during January 2007.
Wii Play features various mini-games such as ping pong, air hockey and billiards, among others. According to Keizo Ota of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development Division (EAD) in the Iwata Asks series of interviews, the team that created Wii Sports also produced family-friendly trial software, which eventually became this separate compilation upon Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion.
Wii Play will release in all territories except the Americas on their respective Wii launch date. The title is expected to come packaged with a Wii Remote, though it's unknown at this time if that will apply to the American edition of Wii Play.
The Wiire will continue to keep you updated. ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:26
news via thewire
According to the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine, Wii Play will arrive in the Americas during January 2007.
Wii Play features various mini-games such as ping pong, air hockey and billiards, among others. According to Keizo Ota of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development Division (EAD) in the Iwata Asks series of interviews, the team that created Wii Sports also produced family-friendly trial software, which eventually became this separate compilation upon Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion.
Wii Play will release in all territories except the Americas on their respective Wii launch date. The title is expected to come packaged with a Wii Remote, though it's unknown at this time if that will apply to the American edition of Wii Play.
The Wiire will continue to keep you updated. ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:26
news via thewire
According to the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine, Wii Play will arrive in the Americas during January 2007.
Wii Play features various mini-games such as ping pong, air hockey and billiards, among others. According to Keizo Ota of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development Division (EAD) in the Iwata Asks series of interviews, the team that created Wii Sports also produced family-friendly trial software, which eventually became this separate compilation upon Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion.
Wii Play will release in all territories except the Americas on their respective Wii launch date. The title is expected to come packaged with a Wii Remote, though it's unknown at this time if that will apply to the American edition of Wii Play.
The Wiire will continue to keep you updated. ...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:21
news via ign
We go Dexter on the Wii's main controller. Satisfy your morbrid curiosity and see it disemboweled within.
November 21, 2006 - It's an open secret that the Wii-remote was originally designed as a GameCube peripheral. Nintendo, however, pursuing the highly publicized 'Blue Ocean' corporate strategy, saw the opportunity to launch a console that would parallel the DS market plan in an entirely new market by means of a new console designed around the freedom provided by a motion-sensing remote controller. The Wii was the result, a console that will lean heavily upon the hypothetically genre-busting gaming innovations that will result due to the console's unique control scheme.
We know the Wii is powered by an IBM CPU and an ATI GPU, and we'd lobotomize one if we had the heart for it. Since we're sensitive peeps, we decided instead to cut straight to the real heart and sole of the Wii: the Wiimote.
Fully assembled, the Wiimote feels well balanced and rather comfortable in hand. It has a good weight, thanks primarily to the batteries, that feels neither too light nor too heavy. Once we broke open the case, however, we discovered quite a bit less circuitry than we had expected.
The Wiimote is held together by four screws, two of which are hidden under the battery compartment. The screws are a propriety three-bit Nintendo design. Actual maintenance kits with proper Nintendo screw-drivers are available through various sources online, however, none were available in time for this feature. Giving up on the potential for actually reassembling our sacrificial Wiimote, we applied a power drill with a 1/8-inch bit and drilled out the screws, which was actually pretty easy.
Once the securing screws were destroyed, the Wiimote came apart quite easily. The plastic buttons connected to the typical silicon membrane electrical connectors as with just about any other controller on the market.
The Wii circuit board looks sparse but actually does quite a lot. The largest chip on the board is the WiFi chip supplied by Broadcom. Motion-sensing wise; forget any imaginative images of a tiny gyroscope spinning inside a tiny box on the circuit board. The Wiimotes accelerometers are based upon miniscule, one-millionth of a gram flaps of silicon flexing against tiny springs within a charged field.
The main Wiimote's accelerometers are supplied by Analog Devices Inc., which declines to specify where on the Wiimote's board its chips reside. Many of the chips on the Wiimote are not labeled, at least not to the natural human eye, but we will speculate that the primary accelerometer chip is the small rectangular one located upon the top side (when held in hand) of the circuit board, in between the 'A' and +, -, and Home button receptors.
Had we not drilled out the screws, we believe we would have been able to reassemble the Wiimote relatively easily. The overall construction of the Wiimote is heavily built and outside of utter destruction via crushing, we expect that the Wiimotes will be able to withstand quite a lot of abuse in the wild. We've already had a wrist-strap-snapping incident that sent a Wiimote flying into a wall. The wall was the decided loser of that battle and suffered a nasty dent, whereas the Wiimote emerged entirely unscathed.
...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:21
news via ign
We go Dexter on the Wii's main controller. Satisfy your morbrid curiosity and see it disemboweled within.
November 21, 2006 - It's an open secret that the Wii-remote was originally designed as a GameCube peripheral. Nintendo, however, pursuing the highly publicized 'Blue Ocean' corporate strategy, saw the opportunity to launch a console that would parallel the DS market plan in an entirely new market by means of a new console designed around the freedom provided by a motion-sensing remote controller. The Wii was the result, a console that will lean heavily upon the hypothetically genre-busting gaming innovations that will result due to the console's unique control scheme.
We know the Wii is powered by an IBM CPU and an ATI GPU, and we'd lobotomize one if we had the heart for it. Since we're sensitive peeps, we decided instead to cut straight to the real heart and sole of the Wii: the Wiimote.
Fully assembled, the Wiimote feels well balanced and rather comfortable in hand. It has a good weight, thanks primarily to the batteries, that feels neither too light nor too heavy. Once we broke open the case, however, we discovered quite a bit less circuitry than we had expected.
The Wiimote is held together by four screws, two of which are hidden under the battery compartment. The screws are a propriety three-bit Nintendo design. Actual maintenance kits with proper Nintendo screw-drivers are available through various sources online, however, none were available in time for this feature. Giving up on the potential for actually reassembling our sacrificial Wiimote, we applied a power drill with a 1/8-inch bit and drilled out the screws, which was actually pretty easy.
Once the securing screws were destroyed, the Wiimote came apart quite easily. The plastic buttons connected to the typical silicon membrane electrical connectors as with just about any other controller on the market.
The Wii circuit board looks sparse but actually does quite a lot. The largest chip on the board is the WiFi chip supplied by Broadcom. Motion-sensing wise; forget any imaginative images of a tiny gyroscope spinning inside a tiny box on the circuit board. The Wiimotes accelerometers are based upon miniscule, one-millionth of a gram flaps of silicon flexing against tiny springs within a charged field.
The main Wiimote's accelerometers are supplied by Analog Devices Inc., which declines to specify where on the Wiimote's board its chips reside. Many of the chips on the Wiimote are not labeled, at least not to the natural human eye, but we will speculate that the primary accelerometer chip is the small rectangular one located upon the top side (when held in hand) of the circuit board, in between the 'A' and +, -, and Home button receptors.
Had we not drilled out the screws, we believe we would have been able to reassemble the Wiimote relatively easily. The overall construction of the Wiimote is heavily built and outside of utter destruction via crushing, we expect that the Wiimotes will be able to withstand quite a lot of abuse in the wild. We've already had a wrist-strap-snapping incident that sent a Wiimote flying into a wall. The wall was the decided loser of that battle and suffered a nasty dent, whereas the Wiimote emerged entirely unscathed.
...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:21
news via ign
We go Dexter on the Wii's main controller. Satisfy your morbrid curiosity and see it disemboweled within.
November 21, 2006 - It's an open secret that the Wii-remote was originally designed as a GameCube peripheral. Nintendo, however, pursuing the highly publicized 'Blue Ocean' corporate strategy, saw the opportunity to launch a console that would parallel the DS market plan in an entirely new market by means of a new console designed around the freedom provided by a motion-sensing remote controller. The Wii was the result, a console that will lean heavily upon the hypothetically genre-busting gaming innovations that will result due to the console's unique control scheme.
We know the Wii is powered by an IBM CPU and an ATI GPU, and we'd lobotomize one if we had the heart for it. Since we're sensitive peeps, we decided instead to cut straight to the real heart and sole of the Wii: the Wiimote.
Fully assembled, the Wiimote feels well balanced and rather comfortable in hand. It has a good weight, thanks primarily to the batteries, that feels neither too light nor too heavy. Once we broke open the case, however, we discovered quite a bit less circuitry than we had expected.
The Wiimote is held together by four screws, two of which are hidden under the battery compartment. The screws are a propriety three-bit Nintendo design. Actual maintenance kits with proper Nintendo screw-drivers are available through various sources online, however, none were available in time for this feature. Giving up on the potential for actually reassembling our sacrificial Wiimote, we applied a power drill with a 1/8-inch bit and drilled out the screws, which was actually pretty easy.
Once the securing screws were destroyed, the Wiimote came apart quite easily. The plastic buttons connected to the typical silicon membrane electrical connectors as with just about any other controller on the market.
The Wii circuit board looks sparse but actually does quite a lot. The largest chip on the board is the WiFi chip supplied by Broadcom. Motion-sensing wise; forget any imaginative images of a tiny gyroscope spinning inside a tiny box on the circuit board. The Wiimotes accelerometers are based upon miniscule, one-millionth of a gram flaps of silicon flexing against tiny springs within a charged field.
The main Wiimote's accelerometers are supplied by Analog Devices Inc., which declines to specify where on the Wiimote's board its chips reside. Many of the chips on the Wiimote are not labeled, at least not to the natural human eye, but we will speculate that the primary accelerometer chip is the small rectangular one located upon the top side (when held in hand) of the circuit board, in between the 'A' and +, -, and Home button receptors.
Had we not drilled out the screws, we believe we would have been able to reassemble the Wiimote relatively easily. The overall construction of the Wiimote is heavily built and outside of utter destruction via crushing, we expect that the Wiimotes will be able to withstand quite a lot of abuse in the wild. We've already had a wrist-strap-snapping incident that sent a Wiimote flying into a wall. The wall was the decided loser of that battle and suffered a nasty dent, whereas the Wiimote emerged entirely unscathed.
...by Published on November 22nd, 2006 05:17
news via businessweek
The graphics leave something to be desired, but the motion-sensitive remote makes this next-gen game system a tough competitor
For a sense of how the underdog Nintendo Wii fares against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, this scene from my home one recent night says it all.
On a rainy Monday, three friends stopped over for drinks before we were supposed to head out for dinner. Nearly five hours later, at 12:30 in the morning, they were finally shoved out the door, exhausted from the workout they gave the Wii and wondering where they could go to grab one of their own. The whole time they were there, the PS3 and Xbox 360 sat forlorn and ignored.
The Wii has the stuff to replicate that scenario in homes far and wide. Despite graphics that are far inferior to those of competitors and a design that looks more like an external hard drive than a next-gen game system, the Wii is just plain fun to play.
Virtual Reality in Your Living Room
What makes it so outstanding? It boils down to Nintendo's (NTDOY) decision to focus on how games are played, rather than the glitz and glitter of the games themselves. The company's innovative motion-sensitive Wii Remote controller truly creates the closest thing you'll get on a home system to virtual reality. Always thought you could be the next Andy Roddick? Playing even the simplest game of tennis with the Wii controller and rudimentary Wii Sports game package might show you how wrong you were.
Nintendo set about making the gaming experience itself something even a grandmother might look forward to, and it does a great job right out of the box.
Setup was fairly simple and intuitive. From the start, you put the Wii on its stand, connect the sensor pickup to the unit, and figure out where to place it near your TV for best pickup of your movements with the remote. I was concerned the sensor, placed below a giant-screen Sharp Aquos HDTV set would not pick up the signal, but it worked just fine.
It's All About Mii
After adjusting the clock and other settings, I set up a wireless connection to my home network in just a few minutes, without incident. Once you're Web-connected, as with the PlayStation 3, the system immediately downloads a software update. The next step is gaining access to the too-cutely-named Mii Channel, where you create your own Mii-simplistic but fun digital avatars that represent you in the Wii Sports games that are included with the console. Other online menu features like news and weather were not yet active.
But as I hinted before, the Wii Remote is the true hero of the system, and makes all the console's other features, or lack thereof, seem almost inconsequential. Nintendo wisely continues to license the force feedback technology that produces satisfying tactile cues through the controller. The same goes for Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360. Sony leaves that feature out of the PlayStation 3, a decision that may come back to haunt the manufacturer as game developers make the most of the feature in the other consoles. The remote also provides great audio, such as the whooshing sound when you swing it like a tennis racket.
The true value of the Wii is its ability to reconvey that sense of child-like wonder that has been lost over the years as games like Electronic Arts' (ERTS) Madden NFL and Activision's (ATVI) Tony Hawk become familiar even as they get more technically complex. Anyone familiar with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will recognize the challenge of rolling monkeys through maze-like levels, or fans of Zelda know well they have to solve a raft of challenges and puzzles to win the game. But when you're using this controller to stab and slash, bob and weave, you'll experience even the most familiar games in a whole new way.
The Good: Wii controller creates an entirely novel playing experience
The Bad: Online features not fully enabled; graphics don't match rival consoles ...- Search DCEmu
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