Nintendo News and Nintendo Direct Catch-All

ccesarano wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Zelda Williams to make a "surprise" appearance at E3. Hopefully this is for something more exciting than a release date/general promotion of Hyrule Warriors.

[size=1]It's totes Hyrule Warriors related[/size]

Zelda will totally be playable in the new Hyrule Warriors, but the execution thereof will still manage to piss everyone off somehow.

Well with some many opponents at once, you'll want an attack that hits many at the same time. Cleavage-based game play only makes sense.

Did they announce the new Wii U that has a beefed up CPU and a second circle pad pro yet? I'm still waiting on that news.

garion333 wrote:

Did they announce the new Wii U that has a beefed up CPU and a second circle pad pro yet? I'm still waiting on that news.

Wow, nice conflation.

gamerparent wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Did they announce the new Wii U that has a beefed up CPU and a second circle pad pro yet? I'm still waiting on that news.

Wow, nice conflation.

It'll save Nintendo!!

NOA showed a new Gamecube Controller adapter for Wii U at the end of their Super Smash Bros E3 tournament info video... sneaky! Info at 2:20 mark in the video.

All of Nintendo's video games charted out by time / franchise.

http://imgur.com/SfGiiOh

Just linking because, as you might expect, it is huge. And just for the pedants, The Wonderful 101 is on there, too.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

All of Nintendo's video games charted out by time / franchise.

http://imgur.com/SfGiiOh

Just linking because, as you might expect, it is huge. And just for the pedants, The Wonderful 101 is on there, too.

Looks good, but they missed the arcade version of Ice Climber. It was available as both the "red tent" Vs. version and as a standard upright. My local pizza joint had the former while the bowling alley had the latter.

USGamer lobbed a bunch of good Nintendo related articles online in the last 72 hours:

Jeremy Parish surveys the Nintendo landscape going into E3. Not a whole lot to be gleamed here, but it's a good overview of why the Wii U has been trouble and some light theorizing on what to expect from E3.

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

And finally, Pete Davison writes an article about Nintendo's role in the local multiplayer genre that I've been waiting for someone to step up to the plate and write.

Twitch is doing all-day streaming from E3 this year, and they've blocked out time for Nintendo. Not only will they be showing Nintendo's digital presentation and the Smash Bros. Invitational, but they've blocked out other times for demonstrations:

Tuesday, 6/10, 2:40 PM Pacific - Nintendo Demo
Wednesday, 6/11, 2:10 PM Pacific - Nintendo Demo
Thursday, 6/12, 12:00 PM Pacific - Nintendo (Unannounced Title)
Thursday, 6/12, 2:40 PM Pacific - Nintendo Demo

Also, Natsume has shared that they'll be revealing three games for Nintendo platforms during E3. They aren't Virtual Console releases, but otherwise no hint if they're new games or localizations, or if they're 3DS or Wii U games or both.

shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

They lost me at "even though really the Wii U should be backward-compatible with GameCube already."

Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

I can't believe the GameBoy Printer didn't make it.

garion333 wrote:
Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

I can't believe the GameBoy Printer didn't make it.

Or Super GameBoy.

And the Super Scope had 1 good, and 1 great game. Battle Clash, and it's differently named sequel, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, respectively.

Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

Ain't a damn thing wrong with a Game Boy Player!

Fedaykin98 wrote:
Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

Ain't a damn thing wrong with a Game Boy Player!

I got a lot of mileage out of both the Super Game Boy and the Game Boy Player.

Farscry wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

Ain't a damn thing wrong with a Game Boy Player!

I got a lot of mileage out of both the Super Game Boy and the Game Boy Player. :)

Ditto! I really wish they had a way to play DS/3DS games on the Wii U that doesn't involve double-dipping on a VC version.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Demyx wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Jeremy also penned this fun fluff piece talking about the various Nintendo peripherals that flopped. Sadly, I think Demyx and I have at least half of them in our closet :/

It's true, but at least my beloved Game Boy Player wasn't on the list.

I can't believe the GameBoy Printer didn't make it.

Or Super GameBoy.

And the Super Scope had 1 good, and 1 great game. Battle Clash, and it's differently named sequel, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, respectively.

Those two were awesome. I don't get the hate for the Super Scope. It was a frigging LIGHT BAZOOKA! It had a scope! How much cooler could you possibly want? Hell, I'd buy that thing right now if they re-released it for the Wii U.

Chaz wrote:

Those two were awesome. I don't get the hate for the Super Scope. It was a frigging LIGHT BAZOOKA! It had a scope! How much cooler could you possibly want? Hell, I'd buy that thing right now if they re-released it for the Wii U.

Just duct tape a Wiimote to an old Super Scope, right?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

They lost me at "even though really the Wii U should be backward-compatible with GameCube already."

Isn't it "4 Gamecubes taped together, though"?

Also my phone helped auto complete that sentence.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

They lost me at "even though really the Wii U should be backward-compatible with GameCube already."

Since the Wii U architecture is basically another iteration on what they did with IBM and AMD for the GameCube, in theory it's possible. They might have to do some weird downclocking stuff like people theorize they did for the GBA games in the Ambassador program for the 3DS, but my understanding is that without the analog L/R buttons of the GameCube controller there's little point (hence this speculation now that Nintendo has unveiled a breakout box for using GameCube controllers on the Wii U).

shoptroll wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

They lost me at "even though really the Wii U should be backward-compatible with GameCube already."

Since the Wii U architecture is basically another iteration on what they did with IBM and AMD for the GameCube, in theory it's possible. They might have to do some weird downclocking stuff like people theorize they did for the GBA games in the Ambassador program for the 3DS, but my understanding is that without the analog L/R buttons of the GameCube controller there's little point (hence this speculation now that Nintendo has unveiled a breakout box for using GameCube controllers on the Wii U).

I think the logic goes: "If the Wii U can run in a Wii mode, and the Wii could run in a Gamecube mode, then the Wii U should be able to run Gamecube mode."

Wii U > Wii > Gamecube.

Three layers. Like Inception. Gamecubeception.

I'm genuinely excited about the controllers.

Gamecubeception.

I can get behind that.

Unlike the 3/DS, I don't believe backward compatibility on the Wii and Wii U is done by having the chip on board, but the Wii did require a Gamecube memory card for saves (right?), which is a space issue on the Wii U. I'm not terribly offended by Jeremy's statement that the Wii U should have backward compatibility because the four GameCubes taped together is more appropriate than in other systems.

garion333 wrote:

Unlike the 3/DS, I don't believe backward compatibility on the Wii and Wii U is done by having the chip on board.

IIRC it is, actually. There's a complete Gamecube inside the earlier Wiis (hence why the later Wiis lost back-compat), and there's an entire Wii inside the Wii U.

I did some digging and I don't think this is the case for the Wii and the Wii U.

It's surprisingly difficult to find this info though.

Minarchist wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Unlike the 3/DS, I don't believe backward compatibility on the Wii and Wii U is done by having the chip on board.

IIRC it is, actually. There's a complete Gamecube inside the earlier Wiis (hence why the later Wiis lost back-compat), and there's an entire Wii inside the Wii U.

Wouldn't that mean that there isn't necessarily a Gamecube inside the WiiU? And if there were a Wii and a Gamecube inside the WiiU, does that mean it's actually seven Gamecube's duct taped together?

TheCounselor wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Unlike the 3/DS, I don't believe backward compatibility on the Wii and Wii U is done by having the chip on board.

IIRC it is, actually. There's a complete Gamecube inside the earlier Wiis (hence why the later Wiis lost back-compat), and there's an entire Wii inside the Wii U.

Wouldn't that mean that there isn't necessarily a Gamecube inside the WiiU? And if there were a Wii and a Gamecube inside the WiiU, does that mean it's actually seven Gamecube's duct taped together?

Wait, how do you get 7? We need to keep our Gamecubes duct taped together math straight.

garion333 wrote:

I did some digging and I don't think this is the case for the Wii and the Wii U.

It's surprisingly difficult to find this info though.

I can dig up articles about it later, but you're incorrect. Backward compatibility on the Wii was hardware-based with a GameCube chip set on the Wii motherboard. Likewise, the Wii U has a Wii chip set on its motherboard but does not have the GameCube chips. It also doesn't have the modified optical drive it would need for the smaller disc sizes.

Nintendo really doesn't like software emulation for backward compatibility with recent generations. It's all hardware based, which is why it's so accurate.

TheCounselor wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Unlike the 3/DS, I don't believe backward compatibility on the Wii and Wii U is done by having the chip on board.

IIRC it is, actually. There's a complete Gamecube inside the earlier Wiis (hence why the later Wiis lost back-compat), and there's an entire Wii inside the Wii U.

Wouldn't that mean that there isn't necessarily a Gamecube inside the WiiU? And if there were a Wii and a Gamecube inside the WiiU, does that mean it's actually seven Gamecube's duct taped together?

We have 100% confirmed that the DS had a GBA chip in it and the 3DS has a DS chip in it. They don't have the same architecture.

The Wii, is based on the Gamecube cpu and gpu, while the Wii U is a continued evolution of that. I do not believe there are separate chips inside the Wii and Wii U. The reason Gamecube compatibility was stripped from the Wii was because they removed the controller and memory ports, which is why the Wii U didn't have Gamecube backwards compatibility. I believe, and it's incredibly tough to find good info on this, that the Wii U could reasonably emulate Gamecube games but the Wii U doesn't have a memory port for the Gamecube.

Edit: Why is this info so difficult to find?!?Q?Q?Q?Q?QQ?Q>D>EE>W>RFW?

Here's what I've got:

The Wii U does boast backwards compatibility with games made for the original Wii, which is made possible thanks to a shared ISA with the original PowerPC based Wii.

From: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/n...

And I see nothing about a Wii chipset here: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Ninte...

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Nintendo really doesn't like software emulation for backward compatibility with recent generations. It's all hardware based, which is why it's so accurate.

Right, I think the only way they could pull off retroactively adding backwards compatibility by doing something like the theorized down-clocking trick they did for the 3DS GBA games.

As far as architecture is concerned, the last 3 consoles have used PowerPC CPUs and AMD GPUs. I'm not totally sure if this would work but I assume if they kept things like API calls and instruction sets consistent between revisions they should be able to run GameCube software on the Wii U with some amount of fussing. In general this is why PCs in 2014 are able to run software that was written in 1996. (edit: I should probably ask about this in the programming thread since this is way out of my area of knowledge. But I think the comparison to how PCs work is appropriate)

Also, the memory cards shouldn't be an issue. If Sony can do virtual memory cards for their PS1/PS2 emulation on the PS3, Nintendo can do the same.

That all said, I would expect GameCube virtual console before retroactive backwards compatibility. There's little incentive in enabling the 21 million GameCube owners from a decade ago to re-play Mario Sunshine when you can make Mario Sunshine available to a new audience (ie. all those kids who were born after the GameCube and are now of age to play games).