SilverStar

Not quite. No names were dropped, no info was given, no quotes were made. It was just an "anonymous source" who "confirmed" the speculation. Still a very high probability, but currently not confirmed in any way, shape, or form.

Apparently there's a whole "wave" of games on the horizon, some of which possibly haven't even been announced yet, to take advantage of the WiiConnect service. They're just waiting for Nintendo to give the go-ahead and launch Pokemon, so they can start getting them out there. http://www.nintendorevolution.ca/03172007/22/wave_of_nintendo_wii_online_games_in_next_6_months

Only the head testers actually get to play the games.. everyone else, is forced to perform the same menial action a million times over, in a million ways, each one only slightly different from the last, to see if it breaks anything.

an on-screen cursor controlled by the pointer in the wiimote, used to collect coins and the like, near Mario. Also used for controlling other things.

I think what they mean, is that one player can control the collection cursor thing while the other player actually, you know.. plays the game.

Alright. Go delete them from your list, then add 20 people in a row, without stopping, then wait for them to add you back.

The difference, is that it takes up a LOT more time to input the numbers on a Wii, than it takes with a keypad on a keyboard. Maybe you should get a Wii yourself and try it out, to see how annoying it is?

Wasn't there some mention prior to the launch, about a feature for the message center that allowed you to automate the sending of info for your online games, to selected friends? To let them know you have such'n'such game, and what your code would be, to easily and automatically add you to their own lists?

Art may use science, but video games are the result of it. They're mass produced, mass marketed, and created more in part due to past sales and surveys, than anything else. You don't take a hundred people to an artist and have him ask them questions for a month, before he sketches out something, has it passed through the group again to find what they feel should be changed, etc... Video games are no more art than Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Doritos or Pizza Hut are art. You know.. there's only one game I can think of, that really deserves to be called Art. Super Columbine Massacre RPG. A game that was hated on, by even the game industry. A game that wasn't designed with focus groups or approval in mind, a game that wasn't meant to wow people with pretty graphics or in-depth story telling or gameplay mechanics. It was a game designed to play on the gut reaction of people. To make them stop, shut up and think. The result? Everyone hated on it. It was even pulled from an indy games festival, due to "moral" reasons, and that is what marks it as real, pure and true art. Art causes an instinctual reaction. It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be smooth, it doesn't have to be smart. Art plays on the minds of those who experience it. And, to the ultimate degree, art is something hated by people who don't understand it. They see it as vile, vulgar and offensive, until they've been able to dissect it and grow to understand it. You want video games as art? Stop trying to say they're art, and start using them to approach serious things. They can be fun, while still pushing into uncomfortable territory. How about an RPG where one of the main characters is a closet gay, who comes out midway through the game, and has to deal with being judged by his peers, by the party, and by everyone else, because of it? That's something that'd really piss people off, I'm sure. And I don't mean one of those ambiguous homosexuals, either. Not one of those males who look female. I mean someone who is really, fully gay. Give them a full-time lover in the last half of the game and make that an entire story in itself, with cutscenes and entire storylines and sidequests you have to explore, based on the social commentary that plagues the real world. If you want games as art, you have to first understand that in art, there is nothing that is taboo. And art isn't designed to be approved of, if it wants to be able to stand on its own merit.

Art is creativity and expression. Art is raw and primal. Art is not engineered through science.

Video games have artistic content and artistic merit. However, they cost too much to produce, to be real art. Modern movies are not art, IMO. Having an artistic style, does not make it art.

I agree, it's not bad if a game is kiddy, but I want it to at least have mature play mechanics. There's only so many Chameleon Twist 2 I can sit through, y'know?

There were a couple pics at Kotaku. The battle system looks.. vibrant. The other screen was incredibly.. well, kiddy. I hope the screens they showed weren't actually from the game, or it's going to be like playing something from Treehouse TV. x.x

To me, pure art is, first and foremost Shit in a Tin, sold for its weight in gold. Beyond that, any work can contain artistic expression and artistic direction. But, games that have focused on making the game as pure art, has resulted in a game that's made fuck all for profits. Games that work to make it fun and explosive, have made more money than you can spend in your lifetime, sanely. And there is -no- such thing, as mass market art. Art is created for the select few, the elite, those who wish to look at it and think, about themselves and the world around them. Art will never appeal to the masses, as the artist originally intended it to be. It has to be taken out of context, exploited and trivialized, before it's ready for Joe Simpleton to understand, and at that point it's no more "art" than a doodle on teh back of a cocktail napkin from the French Maid.

This can only be a good thing. Providing a professional-level game matching service for their online play, could allow for some more advanced tools. An entire Gamespy channel, for users to see what games their friends are playing, for example. Not quite on par with what MS has going, but certainly a lot better than the mishmash Sony is(was?) sticking to, which was pretty much a pissed-on orgy of "Whatever the hell you want to try, even if it doesn't work for anything else". This helps to keep online content costs down, since it's fairly streamlined. So, let's hope for the best?

I think the big reason for the slowdown, is the insane amount of physics going on. And, it makes me want to see the exact same thing done on the X360 and PS3, to see how well they can handle the same events. I know the Wii isn't anywhere near the bulk of the others, but I at least want to see if they can live up to their hype for boosted physics, when they have 800 objects flying around, each one with a unique physics model, and all of them being tracked and applied individually. As well, being able to grab the moon and drag it across the sky is win! A sequel would be great, I just hope they make some overall improvements(like either doing better for voice acting, or getting rid of it entirely), and maybe let things like turning handles be done with the nunchuck so you can keep pointed and still turn the handles and knobs without killing your wrist or anything. Perhaps less focus on the pointer functionality and more on using motion tracing with the accelerometers so you can do better for throwing objects across an arena.

Elebits is a game that I find rather surprising. I rented it for a week and a half(online rentals = win ), beat it, went back to get the extras and stuff. Only managed to get about 1/3 of all the extra stuff there is.. and even after playing it so much, I still want to buy it. And that's after being rendered virtually crippled in my right hand, my play time being reduced to less than 30 minutes at a time from how rough that game is on my wrist. A game that I keep wanting to play, even after it hurts like hell. Now THAT is a testament to how good a game can be. But, I'm really worried that too much play of the Wii will lead to early carpel tunnel syndrome.

Haven't played either, so to me they aren't very remarkable. Typically, Sony doesn't do a lot internally. They just grab second parties to do their stuff for them. You know, like the Gran Turismo series(done by Polyphony Digital, which is owned by Sony).

And if you want to look at only first party games, Nintendo has done far better than Sony, all around. Nintendo games are, sadly, usually the best of their peers. And are usually among the first to try it, too. The results, are that everything else, be it on their system or otherwise, tends to fall vastly short with far more flaws. Maybe one day Nintendo will go the way of Sega and go strictly software, with no hardware allegiance? If so, then you'll start seeing the real effects of Nintendo, spread across all fields. Sony and Microsoft would both start to be labeled as being "too kiddy" because of how incredibly well the Nintendo games would do, causing other developers to try to emulate the successes. One thing you have to consider, is that Nintendo sells more software than pretty much any other company, regardless of having such a small installed userbase. And by Nintendo, I mean internal and 2nd party developers(since I don't think Sony themselves have actually MADE any games, they've had to rely on second party dev studios to do all the software work for them, while they just handle the licensing).

Unless MP8 has online, I have no interest in it. Local multiplayer is nice and all, but I'd rather play with people at distances I don't have to worry about getting smacked in the face from. Guess I'll wait for MP9.

Exactly. It'd be pretty much just like an MP3 ID3 tag. You have the classic, V1 which only has a fixed amount of info, then V2 which has the same info, but expanded vastly and with more options. Hell, that could be why Nintendo has so far said no, to letting any other companies utilize Mii's in their games. Expanding a Mii save data by 1kbit is all it would take, to increase the amount of information by a vast amount, without losing any of the original, "classic mii" information. Very little of what's in there involves positioning. And since positions can be stored fairly easily within a short range, having 128 potentials above and 127 potentials below a default position, would mean a seemingly wide level of customization, in only 8 bits. For most of the features, well.. they could have 256 hair styles, 256 eye styles, 256 colors, 256 heights, 256 girths, 256 positions for nose, 256 positions for eyes, 256 shapes of eyes, 256 shapes of noses... you see how this is going? each one of those ranges of 256 is just 1 byte. 8 bits. 1 kilobit would allow for 128 features that, between them, could each have 256 positions or choices, and would barely take up any memory at all for storage.

And for the MS side of the argument, MS has launched a competition for their XNA development environment, where they have something like 100 prizes of a grand or 10 for the top productions made with their tools.

I, for one, would like to see Nintendo release a Mii Channel V2, or something. Keep all the original stuff, but add extra customization features. Things that can be unlocked, or downloaded. By this point, the popularity channel has been mostly played out, with people seeing the Miis all over the internet, so allowing for something totally new would expand on it.

Easy! Because it's high def! Everyone knows that! And maybe because they give you a bit more control than one would expect from a game for a Nintendo system, currently. The whole loading images and data from the hard drive, and having everything look so smooth is part of the reason. But, that's coming from someone who happens to like those kind of casual sandbox games.. though I do hate the whole Sims series, because they work too hard to force you to stick to a schedule, lest you up and die.

Games may have artistic merit, but games designed specifically to be art, don't do well at all. Art is something created for the love of the medium, for the select few. There is no such thing as Mass Media Fine Art.