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Nintendo Wii
Capcom’s early 2009 release calendar a star studded affair
By Stephen Munn | January 5, 2009
Cry sequelitis all you like, but Capcom’s got something in each of a number of their key franchises rolling out in the next six months. There’s some Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Dead Rising, and Bionic Commando action coming your way, and some of that’s even coming to Wii, even if it may not be the one we really wanted.
Street Fighter 4 is coming February 17th to PS3 and 360. As disappointed as I was that the whole game doesn’t look like Okami as the original trailer seemed to imply, I still think there’s a lot of potential for some great fighting here. Unfortunately, I can’t help but wonder if there’s anything that can be done with the Street Fighter format to give it legs beyond what it was already doing 15 years ago. As interesting as it is, I’ll be waiting and trying before I consider a buy.
February 27th will bring the Wii edition of Dead Rising, subtitled Chop Till You Drop, which is still adorable. The game was expected last year, so I’m hoping the delays mean we’ll see more zombies in the game than the screens out there are showing *cough 6 killed cough*. Dead Rising on 360 was legendary for its swarms of zombies, and the idea that there might be so many fewer on Wii makes me think I’d be better off waiting for a PS3 version.
Resident Evil 5 is something of a legend at this point. In addition to being perhaps the game with the biggest shoes to fill of this lot after the incredible Resident Evil 4, it’s brought out a great deal of ongoing discussion on one of our older articles here at Aeropause. And for the record, I have the opposite opinion of whatever yours might be. Look for this one on PS3 and 360 on (dun dun dun!) Friday the 13th… of March! I’m glad to hear this, because the people at work keep asking me when it’s coming out. Now I have an answer.
Other games mentioned without release dates are the amusingly named FLOCK!, a download-only animal herding puzzle game with UFOs for PSN and XBLA and a bike-racing MotoGP game for Wii in March. They talk about Bionic Commando as well, but they keep the date on that one wide open. Like, six months wide, so we’ll see if it hits in that timeframe or not. It’s due for PS3 and 360 and I think it looks pretty slick.
Windows versions of the PS3 and 360 games are expected at a later date. Press release follows.
Nintendo’s list of pre-registered games that will net you coins
By Stephen Munn | January 3, 2009
I contacted Nintendo about my Club Nintendo confusion the other day and they gave me a little bit more information on the matter. All Nintendo published games from December 2008 on are eligible for coins. In addition to that, games from the list below are eligible for coins. This is supposed to be a complete list of games from before December 2008 that you get coins for when registered (and then you have to complete a survey). Have a look for yourself. Then help me figure out why Mega Man 9 and Dr. Mario Online Rx aren’t on the list.
Games released prior to December 2008
Many games released prior to December 2008 can be registered; however, of those games, only select Wii, Wii Shop Channel games, Wii Channels, and Nintendo DS games will qualify for surveys. See the list of games that can be registered and qualify for surveys below:
I guess I just want to show up Stephen
By Joe Fourhman | January 3, 2009
Stephen covered the weirdness of Club Nintendo’s coins program last week, but my coda to his story is quite different. As you can see, my years of buying and registering Nintendo games has turned into over 1000 coins. About twice what Stephen tallied! Suck it!
As Stephen discovered, the new system really only cares about first party Wii and DS games. In my to-do list of 27 surveys, I had only one WiiWare/VC appearance… a 10-coin post-play survey on Tetris Party. While I do not have as many VC games as Stephen, it is indeed odd that Nintendo doesn’t want to reward those who have spent good money on first party WW/VC purchases.
Out of my collection, I received survey points for every first party Wii game and most DS games. My guess on the missing older DS games is that Nintendo is only awarding coins for games that still have a chance of selling. Animal Crossing: Wild World, Mario Kart DS, even Super Mario 64 still have legs at retail… while early DS also-rans like Warioware: Touched and Yoshi Touch-n-Go do not. That doesn’t explain Elite Beat Agents getting me coins, however, unless they’re polling for a long deserved EBA sequel.
Whether Nintendo will retroactively add in credit for various VC games remains to be seen (safe bet? they won’t), but right now it’s new-at-retail or nothing.
CNet explains why PS3 is losing, thinks Wii Sports is online
By Stephen Munn | January 2, 2009
In a recent article on CNet’s “Negative Approach” blog called “Why the Wii and Xbox are killing Sony’s PS3″ by Dave Rosenberg, there are a number of interesting points made, but few of them are new. This is not special or important at all, but what is amusing is the list of factual errors in the article, the most glaring of which is not the unwillingness to call the Xbox 360 by its own name rather than that of its predecessor, follows.
Minimal modern touches (i.e. social features)
The Wii makes your goofy little Mii character come alive by connecting consoles online. Xbox Live has a community and marketplace. Playstation Home is compelling but empty, which should even out over time. But, the competition is so far ahead, Sony needed to do something much bigger and better.Personally, I thought the social stuff was a little stupid until my nephew destroyed me in Wii bowling while playing 3,000 miles away. Now I get it.
No, he still doesn’t get it. Miis have nothing to do with connecting consoles online, and social stuff on Wii is not a little stupid. What’s stupid is that Rosenberg thought that he was playing Wii Sports Bowling online with his nephew, when in fact he was playing with an AI controlled opponent who was using his nephew’s Mii. There is no online play in Wii Sports.
In his favor, I find the argument that games take too long to start on PS3 surprising, as I’ve never heard that complaint before. I do find that some games take a long time to start up, but it’s not something that makes me “curse the machine” as he claims.
Source: CNet
Wavebird grey-market prices ridiculous; in other news: sky is blue
By Jeremy Yerby | January 2, 2009
Why did Nintendo axe the Wavebird again? For those of you who missed this news when it dropped almost exactly a year ago, Nintendo will no longer manufacture the wireless GameCube pad as of, well, the very beginning of last year. This news slipped past me completely unnoticed since, well, I was mainly rocking my games on the 360 and only occasionally played my Wii. However, over the past few weeks, I have begun a hot new love affair with my Wii. I’ve always had somewhat of a soft-spot for Nintendo but what really has me playing it the most right now is the holiday season has had many friends and relatives over, some gamers and some not, and the Wii really is the star of the console spotlight when it comes to entertaining more than one person in a room.
We’ve had many rousing games of Mario Kart Wii (finally got all the characters, something I’ve been putting off for forever) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I even rekindled my addiction to Animal Crossing. However, all this added Wii activity and hosting several players at once made me dust off my old Wavebird controller because I ran out of Wii-motes. Little did I know the Wavebird was good for something other than VC and GCN games. Its the ideal way to play several of the system’s best games. I know, I know, most of you already knew that, sue me.
So I only have the one Wavebird, and not really thinking about it I strolled over to Walmart and GameStop, only to be disappointed in my hunt for another. I had thought that maybe Nintendo stopped making them, but the abundance of wired GCN controllers made me doubt that. Why on God’s green earth would they continue shipping those controllers with the absurdly short cords but not the Wireless Wonderland that is Wavebird? A quick search on eBay and my heart sunk: I saw one Buy It Now for the Sealed Wavebird priced at $115. Surely a price gouger, right? Well, I found that price to be pretty typical for the once $34.99 pad. Ugh.
The absurdity of this really baffles me. Surely someone at Nintendo plays with the system from time to time and realizes the Classic Controller is crap… I just must make sure my current Wavebird lasts a really long time I suppose.
1up.com Rage Against the Machines report card
By Stephen Munn | December 31, 2008
Hey, does anyone remember that feature 1up ran at the launch of the PS3 and Wii in late 2006? Scott Sharkey, who I know best for that sedate yet learned tone on 1up’s Retronauts podcast which I try so hard to emulate on our own podcast, wrote a pair of articles about the top 10 complaints from users of the two new consoles. I thought it might be interesting to go over the lists and see just how the consoles have addressed the issues listed in their first two years. Without looking, I’m going to bet Sony’s come the farthest and Nintendo’s done the least. Let’s see if I’m right.
Looking Back At 2008 Predictions
By Joe Haygood | December 31, 2008
At the beginning of 2008 I made a few predictions for the coming year. Some were crazy, some were serious, and some just made people scratch their heads. So how did I do when I look back at my predictions? I would give myself a big fat F, because I missed on quite a bit. So lets take a look at what I guessed at and what actually happened, and I give a little commentary on my guesses in regards to the actual happenings of the year.
10 Predictions For The New Year
By Richard Windsor | December 31, 2008
With 2009 less then twelve hours away it’s time to make some predictions about what may come to pass in the new year. I am no fortune teller, but if the past serves as benchmark for the future then I am sure that some of these will come true. 2008 was a bright year for gamers and game makers, but a lot rests on what happens in 2009. Can Sony actually sell PS3’s, will Microsoft release the long awaited motion controller, and will Nintendo release any quality games? Honestly I have no clue, but I can make some predictions.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve become a statistic by spilling coffee into my keyboard
By Stephen Munn | December 31, 2008
Some time ago, I deftly managed to spill a full cup of coffee into my spare USB keyboard. It’s an early Apple USB keyboard that came with a circa 2001 CRT iMac DV I picked up off Freecycle, and I had been using it interchangeably with my PS3 and Wii as needed once the iMac itself just turned out to be too old and slow even for my three year old daughter. I immediately flipped the keyboard upside down (which is what you’re supposed to do as soon as any liquid hits it) and yanked the cord from the PS3, which was fortunately off at the time. I let it drain for a few hours and then set it aside to be cleaned when I had the opportunity.
You may have heard that it’s possible to wash a keyboard in a dishwasher, provided no harsh detergents or dry cycle come into play. NPR even did a story on this in June 2007. The official line from keyboard manufacturers Logitech and Microsoft was that this is a bad idea, but there’s nothing wrong with the concept. You make sure there’s no battery involved (for example, if it’s a wireless keyboard), place it keys-down in the dishwasher, turn off the dry cycle and hit go. Then you let it drain and dry for, like, forever, resisting the urge to melt the keys, and any adhesive in the unit, with a hair dryer when you get impatient.
The fact of the matter is, I don’t have a dishwasher. Or rather, I am the dishwasher.
Five years of consumerism is worth 680 coins, Nintendo? Really?
By Stephen Munn | December 31, 2008
Club Nintendo’s not acting up anymore, but I almost wish it was. Now that the dust has settled and the site’s performing acceptably, I can actually click around and figure out where they moved everything to in comparison to where it was on the My Nintendo system. I decided I wanted to see just how much of a discrepancy there is between the games I have registered over the years and the games I’ve been given Club Nintendo Coins for. As is usually the case, I am not pleased.
Despite the dozens of pieces of hardware and software I’ve registered since I signed up for My Nintendo at its launch in 2003, I’m only getting credit for a small handful of Wii and DS titles. Let me be clear that I accept that GBA and Gamecube titles won’t get me anything, but there are a number of first party current generation titles here that I’m not getting a single coin for, and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to what’s worth points and what’s not. I mean, Metroid Prime Hunters isn’t worth anything, but Super Mario 64 DS is? I’m also not seeing any coins for any of my WiiWare or Virtual Console purchases. These have to be where Nintendo’s made the most money off me.
There are some good and bad coin vs dollar discrepancies here though. Wii Fit is worth 80 coins instead of the standard 50 for Wii games, but even that should be 90 when placed alongside its retail price. Link’s Crossbow Training is worth 50 even though it never sold for more than 25. Still, this doesn’t make up the difference in coins vs. money spent on Nintendo’s products this generation. I’m also a little disappointed that I can’t register games twice, since I have two copies each of Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing: Wild World.
Check below for the somewhat embarrassing list of games I have registered, then look at the list of games I’ve gotten credit for.
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